for me, it isn't over
by M. Pond
Summary: "Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity." With Barney engaged to someone else, Robin tries to move on by starting over.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I have my final exam before I graduate coming up and yet the plot bunny for this story wouldn't leave me alone. It came to me when I was out this evening, and it kept bouncing around in my head until I started writing it. It should only be four chapters long if I stick to my plan (five if there's an epilogue or I split one of the chapters into two). I'm in the final weeks of my degree so I can't promise speedy updates but I know where I'm going with this so it shouldn't be too long a wait between each one.

This is only my second HIMYM fic, and it's my first time ever writing Robin. I adore her and I've tried my best to do her justice but feel free to let me know if she seems off at any point.

The title comes from Adele's _Someone Like You_. Cliché I know but _21_ is devastatingly fitting for where Barney and Robin are in their relationship right now, and you can consider that album the soundtrack of this story. It's what I'm listening to as I write this – also _Crown of Love_ by Arcade Fire – so if you want to listen to something as you're reading this then I recommend that.

* * *

"_True love doesn't have a happy ending, because true love never ends. Letting go is one way of saying I love you." –__ Unknown_

* * *

Whoever said that things always look better in the morning was a big fat liar. In fact, as far as Robin can tell, things only look worse. Barney is engaged to someone that isn't her; Ted is back with Victoria who Robin had hardly been kind to the first time around; and now her boss is summoning her into his office after the lunchtime broadcast. All in all, it is on track to be a truly crap Friday.

She suppresses a groan and drops her head onto the desk with a quiet thump, which does little to help dull pounding behind her eyes. Maybe if she lies here and doesn't move then she'll magically turn invisible and be left alone for the rest of the day. Because she really isn't in the mood for a live broadcast, Sandy's suggestive comments, and the cheery mood that's required for her job. Today's the kind of day where she could really use some massive tragedy that allows her to be as dark as she feels. Not that she's wishing that anyone would die or anything. Just a huge factory fire or massive oil spill would do. 'Or a drunk customer manages to set the Lusty Leopard ablaze, killing everyone inside,' a little voice in her head mutters. She quickly crushes that voice though because those sort of thoughts belong to a crazy bitter ex and she's not going to be that girl. Because there might be girls out there who go into a tailspin when their ex gets engaged and who start seeking happiness at the bottom of an ice-cream tub, but that's never been Robin. And so she's going to take a deep breath, lift her head up off the desk, and go and get ready, because that's what she does. She's a grown adult and she was the one that chose not to get back together with Barney so she's not about to start moping over the fact that he's moved on. She will lift her head up off the desk and get on with her life. In a minute. Or maybe two.

"Are you okay, Robin?" Patrice asks from somewhere behind her, a hand reaching out to pat her shoulder in what is obviously meant to be a comforting manner. However, it does little to comfort Robin because the last thing she wants is sympathy from Patrice of all people. So she takes a deep breath and raises her head with a smile.

"I'm fine, Patrice. I've just got a bit of a headache coming on."

Patrice looks like she wants to say something else but Robin takes her pause as a chance to slip away, throwing a comment about needing to get into make-up over her shoulder. She may not be in the best of moods but she doesn't do female bonding and sympathy chats; she never has and she never will. Shooting guns down at the range is far more her style and that's the first place she'll be going after she gets off work. She would normally choose drinking at McLaren's but there's too much chance of running into people that she would rather avoid there. Not that she's hiding or anything. She could just use a little time to adjust before she's required to pull out the 'I'm so happy for you' smile that's going to be necessary when facing her two exes. And if that takes a couple of nights of firing bullets at a target then so be it.

The make-up room is crowded when she gets there, filled with guests and presenters for the various shows that are going out over the next few hours, and she hopes this will equal a little peace and quiet. But that hope is quickly shattered when she sees Sally, one of the more chattier make-up artists, waving her over to an empty chair. The moment she sits down, she's hit with a barrage of chatter from Sally about her weekend plans and whether this guy she likes is going to call her. Robin barely pays attention to her. She mms and ahs in all the right places and idly watches as blusher is brushed over her cheeks and her eyelashes are caked in mascara. Sally's chatter is inane enough that no real input from her is necessary but it's also manic enough that it keeps Robin from being able to fully lose herself in her own thoughts. Instead, the buzz of Sally's voice and the others around her fills her head and it's strangely soothing.

However, a silence falls over Sally after a while and Robin realises that she missed a question that was obviously directed at her.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said that I heard that your friend had a baby."

"Yeah, a couple of days ago. Marvin Eriksen after his granddad."

"Oh that's nice. I love that old names are making a comeback. There's something lovely about a classic name that could have belonged to one of those movie stars from the 40s. I think I'd name a girl Marilyn or Audrey. Something classy."

And she's off again, rambling on about baby names, a topic that is never going to play a part in Robin's life, whether she wants it to or not. She nods along, hoping she's reacting in all the right places, mentally counting down the seconds until she needs to be in the studio. When she's in there, everything comes naturally, and there's no time to think about anything beyond making sure she doesn't fuck up on live television. In there there's no time for thinking about ex-boyfriends or the fact that she's the only one of her friends not in a committed relationship.

Eventually, Sally sends her off with a smile and her best wishes for Marshall, Lily, and Marvin. Robin gives her her most practiced newscaster grin and hurries off in the direction of the studio, only stopping to grab the updated notes for the newscast. She skids through the doors with two minutes to spare, and she lets the buzz that always fills the studio as a live broadcast approaches embrace her. It's moments like this that let her know that journalism was the right career path for her. She's not sure there's anything she loves more than the moment before she goes live on air to the entirety of New York. Clive starts briefing her on a couple of changes to the script, and Adam is attaching her mike and hurrying over to the desk where Sandy is already sat waiting. He's being doused with one final round of hairspray and Robin has to fight a hacking cough as the spray hits the back of her throat. She sips at the glass of water on the desk to clear the taste away, and she smoothes her skirt down even though no one will be able to see it.

The faint sounds of the World Wide News theme echoes through the studio, and the counter to the right of the camera signals that there are only ten seconds remaining until they're live. Robin takes a deep breath, shoves all thoughts about yesterday's events out of her head, and focuses on the camera.

"I'm Sandy Rivers." So what if her ex-boyfriend is marrying a stripper?

"And I'm Robin Scherbatsky, and this is the news at one."

She's Robin Scherbatsky and she's going to get through this.

* * *

"Great show," Eric says as she walks into his office, his attention still mainly focused on the papers on his desk rather than her. "You and Sandy, such a great team." Robin isn't sure she'd call a skeevy guy and the woman who's spent seven years fending off his advances a great team but she'll take what she can get. And at least the positive comment means this meeting isn't about her getting fired. She's really not sure she could handle losing her job on top of everything else lately. She's faced the battle to find a job in journalism before and it was not fun. The interview for the naked news show will probably always leave her mentally scarred. "So you're probably wondering why I called you in here," he says, finally looking up from his desk.

"I was," she says tentatively. Eric is far more professional than her boss at Metro News One but she still wouldn't put it past him to start asking her questions about the strange noises his dog is making.

"Well there's no need to look so terrified. It's not bad news, I swear. I'm sure you've noticed that we're slowly expanding our coverage here, both in terms of content and scope. That little trip to Russia we sent you and Patrice on was just the beginning. To really rival the CNN's of this world, we need to truly be able to compete." She nods, still completely unclear as to what this has to do with her. As long as they're not about to make her start presenting the news with a monkey then she's not going to kick up a fuss. "We've been talking about potential changes for the past few months and we've decided to shuffle a few people around. Everyone's in agreement that we could do with a shake-up, and with new roles being created, now is the perfect time."

"So I'm guessing I'm not going to be presenting the lunchtime news anymore?" She tries to sound calm but she crosses her fingers and prays she's not about to get relegated to the early morning slot. Having a proper night's sleep is not a luxury she is willing to give up any time soon.

"Well that depends on you. We love what you've been doing here and that helicopter stuff was just genius. You're exactly the sort of person we want working for us. But we think you're ready for more."

"More?"

"Like I said, this is entirely up to you, and if you'd rather remain presenting the lunchtime and evening news then we'll be more than happy for you to do so. However, what we'd like to offer you is a promotion to foreign correspondent."

"Foreign correspondent?" She cringes and wishes that she could stop repeating the last thing he says, but she's so lost that she feels like she's running just to catch up with his train of thought.

"Yes. Any huge events that are happening, you'd be our eyes and ears on the ground. Obviously you wouldn't be the only one. We've already offered the same role to Patrick, and we're in talks with someone from another channel, which I clearly can't say too much about just yet. But we'd like you to be the other reporter on the team."

"So what would the new job mean? Would I still be based here?"

"Unfortunately, the nature of the job would mean that we would require you to be travelling most of the time. We're still working the kinks out because all we've had before are reporters based here being sent out to the relevant countries. But that just isn't quick enough for us to get the latest news, and it's one of the reasons why we lag behind bigger news stations. We're World Wide News for a reason. The idea is that you move from country to country whenever there's a story. If you're finishing up a report in London and riots break out in Paris then you can be on the scene within a couple of hours. Or if there's a particularly massive event, like the World Cup, then you can be stationed out there for a good few weeks and give us daily updates."

Robin tried to formulate some sort of response but she was coming up blank. It would be a complete change from what she was doing now but it would also be the exact sort of thing she had dreamed about doing ever since she first started working as a journalist. The only hiccup was the part where she would spend most of the year travelling. She wasn't the sort of person that normally got attached to one specific place but she had come to love New York. It had been her home for the past seven years and all her friends were here. Japan hadn't been the great experience she was hoping for, and to leave and have it fail again would be heartbreaking.

"It's a fantastic offer, really. I'm just not sure…"

"Obviously it's a lot we're asking you to give up. It won't be the regular day-to-day schedule you have here, and it'll mean the next few years are rather up in the air for you. We think you can handle it though."

"I just don't know if I'm in a place in my life where I can just pack and up and go."

"And that's completely understandable. But there will be benefits that come with it. All your flights and transport costs will be covered, as well hotels. If you're on a longer report, anything over a month, then we'll cover half the cost of an apartment. And obviously it'll come with a decent salary bump." He slid a contract over to her with a little yellow post-it on top detailing what World Wide News classed as 'decent salary bump.' It made her raise from researcher to presenter pale in comparison. "It'd be a three year contract with the option for another two years. And we'd also be open to negotiations at the end of each year to give you the chance to re-evaluate. If you decide after a year or two that it's no longer for you then we'll find you a job here for the remainder of your contract."

"This is an amazing opportunity," she says, flicking through the contract. The voice in her head is telling her to go for it but there's something stopping her accepting it there and then. "How long do I have to decide?"

"We don't need your answer right this second so feel free to take the weekend to think about it. We do want to get you out in the field as soon as possible though so I will need your answer by Monday."

"Okay. And if I don't accept…?"

"Then we'll be more than happy to keep you on as co-host with Sandy. Your future with us is secure either way. It's up to you whether you want that future to be here in New York or in a variety of countries."

* * *

Robin barely pays attention during the afternoon meetings. Instead, she mentally weighs up a pro-con list and tries to come up with an answer for Eric. The only problem is that, while Ted may think that pro-con lists are the best way to make decisions, they don't work so well when you can't put your reasons for not wanting to leave into words. On paper, everything is telling her to accept the job. She's always wanted to travel the world and live in different countries, and here's the chance for her to get paid to do it. She'd be reporting on so many different things while getting to experience life in countries she might never have visited otherwise. Plus the pay increase won't exactly do any harm towards the nest egg her mother encouraged her to start building the moment the first pay cheque came in from her mall tour. But all those logical reasons aren't enough to make her say yes. Because when she thinks about not being in New York anymore and all the things that she would be missing out on, she feels a little sick. When she was in Japan, she was horribly homesick even though she never admitted it to anyone. She took to watching awfully dubbed re-runs of Cheers just for some semblance of home. And she's not sure she could face leaving again, especially with no idea when she'll be coming back. She knows how friendships fall apart when the other person isn't close by anymore, she just as to look at how many of her Canadian friends she no longer talks to know that. She's not sure she could stand that happening with her friends here.

'But isn't it already happening?' the annoying little voice in her head pipes up. Marshall and Lily have Marvin now so they're not exactly going to be up for hanging out at the bar every night anymore. Soon Barney will be married, which will just leave her and Ted. And even he will be gone if him and Victoria end up going the distance. Somehow, without even doing anything, she'll have become the seventh wheel in her group. When her and Barney were together, Ted had told her that couples need other couples to survive. If other couples end up hanging out with other couples then where will that leave her, the only single person in a friendship group of couples?

That pounding headache from this morning is coming back in full force now, and she's sorely tempted to put her coin flipping skills to use and let a coin decide her future for her. How is she supposed to decide what the right choice is? When she tries to picture her future following either choice, she keeps coming up blank. Even her own mind is bailing on her.

What she needs is some external advice but she isn't sure who she can go to anymore. At one time, Ted was her sounding board, but things are still weird between them now, and she knows that he'd tell her to stay because he doesn't understand the urge to travel that she has. And Lily will do the same because her whole world has changed with the arrival of Marvin, and she's not going to want her best friend disappearing off to the other side of the world. Lily told her about how she always wanted to travel, but now her and Marshall settle for their occasional holidays and that's it. Lily is the epitome of stability and something tells her that she isn't going to understanding taking a job where Robin will never know where she's going to be living next. The truth is that there's only one person who Robin knows will give her an honest answer about what she should do, one not clouded by their own opinions or needs, but his engagement means that that door is closed now. She's not stupid; she knows that his engagement marks him moving on from her once and for all. There was a time when she was probably the most important person to him and he would have listened to all her problems and told her what she should do. They'd have drunk scotch and he'd have told her that she was crazy for even considering turning it down. She can almost hear him telling her that New York will suck without his best bro but that she needs to do this. Now though, Quinn is the number one priority in his life, and a brand new fiancée means no more sitting around listening to an ex's problems.

No, she's on her own with this one.

* * *

By the time the cab turns onto Lily and Marshall's street, she's changed her mind about fifteen times. When she left work, she was going to take the job. It would mean no more lecherous advances from Sandy, and maybe she'd be lucky and get to spend the winter someone hot and sunny. Then she got to the shooting range and she decided to turn it down. She loved New York, she finally had a great job that she loved doing, and what more was she going to gain from taking the promotion? She still had plenty of time to travel and the idea of not having a proper home wasn't all that appealing. But by the time that she had shot a few rounds and felt the stress leave her body, she was already working out what to do with her apartment and all her stuff. It went on and on like this through the journey back to her apartment, dinner, and the journey to Lily's, who had text her in frantic need of adult conversation. Every time one thing convinced her to choose to take the job, another thing convinced that she wanted to stay in New York. Progress had been made though when she was halfway through switching from her pencil skirt to a pair of jeans and had realised that all her arguments kept coming back to the same two points. Ultimately, all her reasons for taking the job centred around her need to travel and see the world like she's always dreamed of doing. And all the reasons for staying as Sandy's co-host were to do with the fact that she has a home here in New York thanks to her friends. And that's why the decision is proving so hard. Because how do you choose between your dream job and your friends?

The cab pulls to a stop outside the apartment she used to call home, and she hands the driver a few notes, hoping she's given him enough for a decent tip. She's just getting out of the cab when she sees a group of familiar figures coming up the stairs from MacLaren's. Victoria's arm is linked through Ted's, and she's laughing at something Barney has said, who is following the couple up the steps with his arm around Quinn's waist. There's something about the sight of the four of them that hits Robin like a punch in the gut. Because she was telling Barney the truth yesterday when she told him that she was happy for him. He deserves to be happy. That doesn't mean the sight of him having truly moved on doesn't hurt like a bitch though. The sight of her two ex-boyfriends, both who she saw herself having a future with at one point or another, with other women confirms the thought she has been fearing all day. If she is about to become the seventh wheel in her friendship group then how long will it be until she's no longer a part of that group? There's no place for a single thirty-something in a group of married couples. And if there's soon going to be no place for her amongst the people that she'd be staying in New York for then maybe there isn't a place for her in New York anymore.

The foursome spot her before she can take that thought any further, and she approaches them with a smile on her face.

"Hey, what are you doing here? I thought you had to work late," Ted asks.

"I was going to but then Lily text me. Apparently one day alone with Marshall and the baby is enough to drive her to despair already." She laughs and hope it doesn't sound forced.

"Well we were just heading upstairs to tell them the good news anyway."

"Good news?"

"Yeah," Quinn says with a smile. "We've decided that there's no real point in us waiting that long to get married. Neither of us have a particularly huge family, and there's no real need to wait. It's not like either of us have dreamed of the fairytale wedding. So we've decided that we're getting married in September."

And the moment those words leave Quinn's lips Robin makes up her mind; she's taking the job.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you for all the reviews, alerts, and favourites that have been filling up my inbox this past week. I really wasn't sure about this story so all the positive responses to it have really made my week. I wish I could reply to all of you individually but revision for my last ever exam is taking up my time. I swear I will once that's out of the way next week though. So let this stand as a massive universal thank you to everyone who's enjoying this story.

Secondly, I want to quickly clarify something from a review I got. This is in no way meant to be a rip off of the Japan storyline from S4. Any similarities between the two are purely coincidental. It's established canon that Robin is going to live abroad in the future and this is my way of making that happen. And to clear it up now, this story isn't going to involve Robin flying back for Barney's wedding and us learning that you should never invite an ex to your wedding.

Finally, this chapter got way out of hand. I went into it knowing I wanted to include Robin telling the gang her news and the final section. Coincidentally the final section is one of two scenes that started this whole story. But it got out of hand and somehow it turned into a 9500-word thing. I have no idea if the other chapters will be this long, we'll see how it goes. Also, I intended to have Barney's perspective in this chapter but he wouldn't play ball and Robin had a lot of feelings. I swear that his side is coming though.

And without further ado, here is chapter two.

* * *

"_Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding on to.–Anonymous_

* * *

Robin swears that she's been trying to find the right time to tell the gang her big news. She honestly has. It's hardly her fault that the right moment has never arisen. And anyone who says that she hasn't told them because she keeps chickening out doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. It's just that whenever she considers telling them, something else takes precedence over her news. She could hardly tell them when she made up her mind because nothing was settled yet, and she didn't even know where she would be sent to first or when. Plus Barney and Quinn had their own big news to share, and she wasn't going to risk anyone considering the idea that the two were connected. Not that she's leaving New York because of Barney. Robin Scherbatsky is not the sort of woman who leaves her home because of some guy. If pushed she might call it a motivating factor but nothing more than that. She's leaving New York because this new job is a fantastic opportunity and she would be nuts to pass it up. Her dream has always been to be a journalist who travels the world, and now is as good a time as any to start. If the opportunity just happens to coincidence with her ex's plan to marry a girl that he's barely known for more than five minutes then so be it.

It's just that every time she gains the courage to tell her friends about her new job, someone beats her to the punch and shares something of their own. She goes into Eric's office on Monday morning, hands over the freshly signed contract, and tells him that she can start as soon as possible. She's happy to keep on as Sandy's co-host until they find her replacement, she'll even help find them if needs be, but the sooner she can get started the better. That evening she tries to tell everyone her news but Marshall is convinced that Marvin smiled for the first time and he's showing everyone pictures. Lily points out that babies don't smile until at least six weeks old but that doesn't deter him, and Lily has to wrestle him away from Marvin's room when he goes to wake him up to show everyone that he's right. The rest of the night is taken up with baby talk and how long it'll be before Barney can teach him to high five, and Robin ends up leaving the apartment at midnight not having told them anything.

The next time she tries to tell them, a week later when Eric informs her that they're making headway on finding her replacement and are in talks with someone from some Boston news station, they're helping Barney and Quinn redecorate their apartment. She tries to get out of it, feigning an excuse about needing to work, but Ted drags her along, telling her that they needed the extra set of hands since Marshall and Lily can't help. When they arrive and are greeted by the sight of the garish pink living room, Robin bites her tongue because any comments from her are just going to sound like a snarky ex-girlfriend. When Quinn runs out to get more paint apparently neon pink walls are harder to cover up than any of them had expected Robin waits for Ted to say something but he doesn't. She wants to ask Barney what the hell he's thinking marrying someone who does stuff like this but she resists the temptation. And when Ted and Victoria get into a paint fight, and Barney and Quinn are too busy making out to notice what's going on around them, she sneaks off, her news still going unshared.

Two weeks pass before she's called into Eric's office right after she walks out of the studio after the evening broadcast. He informs her of what her first assignment is going to be and what she's going to need to do in preparation. That night she heads to the bar with every intention of telling the gang, honestly, but she's just grabbing a chair to join them at the booth when her phone goes. It's Katie who's in floods of tears because her boyfriend's been cheating on her with the girl that he swore was nothing more than his lab partner. Apparently they were meant to be going to Brazil together over the summer and now everything is ruined. Robin has to excuse herself because her sister clearly has no intention of calming down any time soon, and she ends up spending the night in her apartment reassuring her sister that the guy was a jackass and that there are better guys out there. She finds herself in a three-way conversation with her sister and her sister's friend, and by one a.m. she has the two girls planning to go to Brazil together on an anti-boys holiday. When Katie has finally stopped crying and started using every swear word under the sun to describe Ryan, she asks Robin what she's been up to. As the words pass Robin's lips and she tells her sister about her new job, she can't help but smile. She's been too nervous about telling anyone the news to really focus on how exciting it is, but as her sister squeals excitedly down the phone, it hits her. She's going to be living in countries she's never been to before, and she's never going to know where she's going to be living from one month to the next. She can wake up in Argentina and be on a plane to Paris by that evening. All the stupid little worries that crowd up her life in New York, like whether she should give a dollar to the drunk tramp outside the subway station on her way to work, or if it's rude to go and tell her neighbours to make their kids shut the hell up when she's trying to sleep, won't matter anymore. It's a fresh start and that's one thing she could definitely use after the year she's had.

So yes, Robin honestly does try to find ways to tell her friends what she's decided to do but things keep on getting in the way. One night it's Ted debating whether it's too soon to ask Victoria to move in with him, and the next night it's Marvin having a slightly increased temperature and Lily and Marshall being convinced that he's about to die. Somehow, Robin blinks and another month has passed without her letting them all know anything. Therefore, it's not until the first Monday in July that she finally gets around to telling them all. She's running an hour late because there's a bug going round and she finds herself having to cover a broadcast for Carrie. So when she arrives at the bar, everyone else is already sitting around the booth. As she walks in, waving at Carl, the sight of all her friends stops her in her tracks. Marshall's mum has made it up from Minnesota for a couple of weeks and is on hand as a babysitter 24/7 so Marshall and Lily have both made it to the bar for the first time in forever. Robin thinks it might be the one and only time that Lily has ever been truly thankful to see her mother-in-law. They're nestled together on one side of the booth, sharing a plate of fries, and nodding along at Ted's story. Barney and Quinn are sat on the other side, barely paying attention to Ted as Quinn flips through what is probably a bridal magazine and points stuff out to Barney. The final couple, Ted and Victoria, are sat at the end of the booth, having commandeered chairs from a nearby table. Ted is gesticulating wildly while Victoria shakes her head, laughing and correcting whatever he is saying. Whatever he says next causes her to gasp in mock offence, and she slaps his arm and turns away from him. Robin is too far away to hear what Barney says but Marshall laughs appreciatively and high fives him. To anyone else on the outside looking in, they look like three perfect couples. But what Robin sees is a group where there's suddenly no place for her. When Ted first invited her for a beer with his friends, she had slotted in easily amongst the engaged couple and two single guys. Except now that engaged couple are a married couple with a kid, and the two single guys are in committed relationships. She's the only one still in the same place she was seven years ago, and it's never been more glaringly obvious than at this very moment.

The temptation to turn and go before they spot her is strong but then Lily is waving her over and she has no choice but to force a smile on her face and make her way over. The awkwardness is obvious almost immediately because there's not enough room to pull up an extra chair, and she can't quite imagine Quinn happily moving down for her to squish in next to Barney. Marshall begins to shift down the bench but Robin shakes her head at him.

"It's alright, I can't stay long. I just came in because there's something I've been meaning to tell you guys, and I've kept putting it off but now is as good a time as any." Six faces stare up at her, waiting to hear what she has to say, and she takes a deep breath before saying what's been on the tip of her tongue for a long time. "I've got a promotion."

The smiles are instantaneous and she wishes she didn't have to say the rest of it because she knows they're not going to be this happy for her for much longer.

"Congratulations, Robin. So you're not going to have to work with lecherous Sandy anymore?" Ted asks.

"Nope, no more Sandy. I think I'll actually miss him in a strange way. You know, as much as you can miss the guy who spends most meetings leering at your breasts and turning everything you say into a double entendre." This garners laughter from her friends and she hesitates, trying to figure out how to break the news about the exact nature of her job.

Marshall grins at her and raises his glass in a mock toast. "So what's the promotion? A morning show that's actually on at a decent hour for us to watch?"

"No, not exactly. Um…they've made me a foreign correspondent." The silence she had expected descends over the group as they process the news. The only two who aren't giving her their full attention are Quinn and Victoria but that's hardly surprising. She doesn't think either of them are going to be too disappointed at the news that their partners' ex is leaving town. "Yeah, they want me travelling to wherever there's a story. It's a really awesome opportunity," she starts before trailing off.

Lily's voice is tinged with shock and sadness as she asks, "You're leaving?"

"Yeah. Eric asked me a couple of months ago and I couldn't turn it down. It's what I've always wanted to do."

"A couple of months ago?" Barney says, and she turns to look at him properly for the first time, not sure what she wants to see on his face. Whatever it is, it isn't there. His face is blank, and she's not sure whether it's a sign that he doesn't care or that she just can't read him like she used to be able to. "And you're only telling us now?"

"I was going to tell you all sooner, I swear, but I didn't know how to."

"Well 'I'm leaving New York. I thought you ought to know,' would have been a good start," Ted snaps.

"It wasn't as simple as that. I wasn't even sure about it all myself to begin with, and if I'd told you guys straight away then I'd have let you talk me out of it."

"We wouldn't have done that," Marshall protests. "We just don't see why you've waited so long to tell us something this huge."

"I should have told you guys sooner, I'm sorry. I was trying to find the right time and I waited too long. But I'm really excited about this and it'd be great if you guys could be happy for me too."

"My best friend's just told me that's she leaving after keeping it secret for two months. It might take me a little while to start jumping up down in excitement for you, sweetie," Lily says, her voice tinged with bitterness.

Her reaction is exactly why Robin has waited so long to tell them. None of them truly understand her need to travel, and it's one of the reasons that Ted and her had broken up. She loves her friends but they are the type of people who are happy to stay in the same place and that isn't the way she is. Marshall and Lily couldn't even adjust to living in Long Island, let alone France or China.

"Lily, I wasn't keeping it secret! I didn't tell you guys because when I was deciding whether or not to take the job, you were a big reason why I didn't want to take it. I hate the idea of not seeing you guys every day but this is something that I have to do. If I turned it down then I know that I'd regret it later on." She doesn't realise that she's getting upset until Lily shuffles out of the booth and embraces her. "I love you, guys, and if there was a way for me to travel and see you guys every day then I'd do it in an instant."

"We are happy for you, sweetie, really we are. Aren't we, guys?" Lily glares at their friends and receiving a few vaguely enthusiastic murmurs of agreement. "It's just a shock that's all. But we've got time to adjust and we'll be super pumped for you by the time you leave. It'll just take a little while."

"That's the thing," Robin starts, bracing herself for what's bound to be another round of negativity. "The job entails me covering any huge events that happen, and Eric's made my first assignment the Olympics." There's a round of shouts from her friends, and she waits for them to calm down before continuing. "They want me stationed out in London to cover them for the show. You know, giving daily updates, interviewing athletes, talking to the crowd, all that sort of stuff. And they need me out there to prep beforehand so I'm kind of expected to leave on Monday."

Their reactions make Robin wish that she had simply written them a note instead for them to find once she was safely over in London.

Lily desperately tries to find something positive in this announcement saying, "But the Olympics finish in August, right? So you'll be back after that? It's only a month. We went longer than that when you were in Japan."

"I wish I could but they want me covering the Paralympic Games after that so I'll be in London until at least mid-September. And there's no guarantee that I won't just be sent somewhere else straight afterwards. I'm never going to know when I'll definitely be able to come back or for how long."

"What about Barney and Quinn's wedding though?" Victoria finally pipes up, adding the least helpful contribution possible to the conversation. "You can't miss that."

Robin has to resist glaring at Victoria, and she fights to keep her face blank. The task of covering the Paralympic Games hadn't actually been tied to her covering the Olympics but she had happily accepted it when Eric brought it up. She's never actually been to London, and it seems like the sort of place where she'd be happy to spend a couple of months. And if that means coincidentally missing her ex's wedding then so be it.

"I wish I didn't have to," she starts, the words feeling false on her tongue, "but covering the Olympics and Paralympics are sort of a package deal, and they don't finish until a week after your wedding. I'll be in London on the big day. I'm sorry, guys."

"Well we'll miss you," Quinn says before Barney can say anything. "But we'll make sure to take plenty of photos for you to see next time you're in New York. It'll be just like you were there."

Robin really hopes that it sounded like there was at least some warmth and sincerity behind her words because Quinn's are painfully lacking in either. She doesn't think Quinn hates her, they don't know each other well enough for that, but she doesn't sound particularly heartbroken at the idea of Robin being a few thousand miles away on her big day.

* * *

'What to do when you're preparing to move to the other side of the world tomorrow and you haven't even started packing yet' does not prove to be the most helpful of _Google_ searches. She's done all this before so it shouldn't be that hard but she's amassed a lot more stuff since then, and it's proving difficult to decide what to bring with her. She's never been the most sentimental of people but everything is changing, and Robin finds herself wanting to cling onto the parts of the past that are finished for good. And is it really that strange if she finds herself shoving three photo albums and an old college notebook into her suitcase?

Her apartment is a mess, and every time she packs another box, a new pile of stuff seems to appear. How has she gathered this much crap? Clothes are strewn across her bed and floor, and there are piles of books and DVDs wherever she looks. The issue with this new job is that she has no idea what she's going to be doing. What if she's in Rome and has to attend a dinner at the embassy? What use is the Donna Karan dress that cost her more than her rent going to be if it's in her closet back in New York? Her father always taught her to prepare for every eventuality, and while he may not have been talking about cocktail dresses and books on French cooking, the statement still stands.

Eric had told her to pack light, and three or four years ago that would have been easy. But now she finds herself trying to pack as much as she possibly can even though she knows she'll regret it when she's running to catch the last train to Beijing. She's tried to be methodical, dividing everything up into things that need to come with her, things that can stay in her apartment, and things that are too personal to be left around for a snooping tenant to find.

It had been Marshall's idea to sublet her apartment, arguing that it's a two bed so she'll always have somewhere to stay when she's back in New York. He didn't say it but she read the hidden meaning in what he was saying if after a month or two she decides that the nomadic lifestyle isn't for her then she has a place to come home to. So she's placed an in the paper announcing she has a room for rent, and has spent the past three days fielding calls from people who sound like she's going to come back to find her apartment turned into a drug den.

Glancing at the clock, she groans at the fact that another hour has passed and she's no closer to being ready to go. The gang are throwing her a farewell party at MacLaren's at eight, their big gesture to show that they are okay with her leaving, and the couriers are showing up for all her stuff at seven. Which means she has two hours to decide whether her array of hockey jerseys are a necessity _of course they are_ _– _before she has to send all her stuff away and get ready for her last night out with her friends for god knows how long.

Turning back to the pile of stuff around her, she begins to split her DVDs into ones that are going to storage and the ones that are going to be necessary for the times when she wonders what the hell she's doing travelling from country to county. And since she is alone in her apartment, she doesn't even need to be stealthy when she stumbles across the _Sandcastles in the Sand _VHS and shoves it to the bottom of her suitcase.

* * *

The ride from her apartment to MacLaren's is a nightmare, and that is one thing about New York that she won't miss. The sweltering heat means that everyone has forsaken the subway in favour of cab rides. Of course that means that hailing a cab proves to be an impossible challenge, and she has to resist cursing up a storm when one finally stops only to be swiped by a woman with a screaming child in tow. Her hair is plastered to her neck, and she fumbles in her bag for a hair tie, causing another cab to zoom past as she scrapes her hair up into a sloppy ponytail. With the gang's words of advice about being a true New Yorker ringing in her head, she slips into a cab that's come to a stop, ignoring the angry cries of the older woman who had hailed it.

By the time she arrives at the bar, she's wishing that she had invited everyone over to her place instead. At least it has air con and wouldn't have involved her travelling in the insane Manhattan heat. The steps to bar have been taken over by occupants seeking some form of breeze, alerting her to the fact that it's going to be no cooler indoors. She navigates her way through the various bodies, regretting her decision to throw on a pair of heels, and makes her way inside. Ted had suggested throwing her some big going away party but she had told him that she wanted nothing more than a last drink with her friends. Her friends are gathered around their usual booth and it's like it's a regular night. And though she never asked for it, she's glad to see that the only people sat at the table are her four friends. If she's going to spend her last night in New York with anyone, she wants it to be just them and no one else.

"We thought you might have skipped out on us," Ted tells her as she sits down.

"And leave you guys without the joy of my presence one last time? As if I'd be that cruel." She reaches over and snags a couple of Marshall's fries. "So you guys actually listened to what I wanted? I was kind of expecting you to casually convince me to go up to the roof for something that definitely isn't a surprise party."

"What? Why would you think that?" Marshall asks, his voice reaching an unnaturally high pitch as he waves his hands in what Robin thinks is supposed to be a casual manner. "As if we would do something like that! You're crazy!"

"Subtle, Marshall," Lily hisses.

Robin should have known they weren't actually going to listen to her. "Guys, I told you I didn't want any fuss."

"We know, honey, but it's your last night here, and we wanted to do something special for you. Which is why we planned a massive surprise party for you on the roof. But then Barney pointed out that you'd hate that since you're not Ted."

"Hey!"

"So we put our money together and got this bottle of scotch for us to share instead." Marshall signals for Wendy who's carrying a bottle of scotch that Robin could only afford if she sacrificed buying food for the foreseeable future.

"Aw, you shouldn't have!" She swears she's not getting emotional. It's just a bottle of scotch and it's not that big a deal. Except for the fact that her friends actually listened to what she wanted, and she's never had people that care about her as much as these people do. The idea that she might not see them for months and months after tonight makes her want to run to World Wide News and tell them that's she's changed her mind.

But then the scotch is being poured, Marshall is proposing a toast to her, 'the girl who is about to take the world by storm,' and she feels like she can do anything with these guys back home rooting for her.

Her friends begin to reminisce over the times they've had together over the past few years, each clamouring to share this memory or that, and Robin simply sits back and lets them talk. Their words wash over her and embrace her, soothing her against the reality that will be her lonely existence from tomorrow onwards. When she's curled up in an unfamiliar bed in London or Sydney, tossing and turning restlessly as sleep escapes her grasp, she can find comfort in the sound of Lily's laughter or the sight of Barney's smirk. She takes fragments of what's happening around her, like the way that Ted looks over at her and rolls his eyes when Marshall exaggerates a story, or the feel of Barney's knee knocking against hers as he reaches for the scotch, and she stores them away for a rainy day. These are the moments that will keep her going when times get tough and it feels like she made a mistake. Moments of loneliness will be eased by memories of the people that she loves the most in the world. But those moments are still far away, nothing more than specks in her future. For tonight, she has her friends and she is happy.

* * *

As is inevitable with any night that one wants to see last, it slowly starts to draw to a close. It begins with the occasional yawn from Lily, stifled behind a hand or slipping out in the middle of an anecdote. She slowly leans closer to Marshall and withdraws from the conversation, her comments and jokes become less and less frequent. Robin knows her friend is doing exactly the same thing as her, clinging to this night due to the knowledge that everything will be different in the morning, and she loves her for it. When she had arrived in New York she had tried to make friends but all the girls were too loud or too superficial or too clingy for Robin to have any urge to let them in. She'd find herself dodging their calls after a week or two like a bad date that she was trying to avoid. She had known that New York was a city that could make even the most popular of people feel alone, and she had truly felt like she had no one until she found the gang. Lily isn't too loud or superficial or clingy. She reminds Robin of that song you hear on the radio which you end up playing over and over again, wondering how you've gone this long without having it in your life. Lily is the friend that Robin wasn't even aware she needed until she suddenly couldn't imagine her life without her in it.

"You should go home, Lils. You're exhausted."

"No, we're having fun," she protests weakly, clearly fighting back another yawn. "I'm fine."

"Lily, I love you but you need to go and sleep. You have a two-month-old son at home who I'm sure is going to happily wake you up nice and early."

"I don't want to leave you though." Her voice hints at the emotion that she is trying to keep at bay as she reaches across the table to clasp at her friend's hand. "It's your last night."

"For now, Lily, not forever. We'll have plenty more. I'll be coming back to New York and you can drag me down here for a drink the moment I get back."

Lily sniffs and gives her a watery smile. "You can save me from my hell of nappies and formula with stories of the fabulous European men who've swept you off your feet and showered you with gifts."

Robin wants to tell her that the men she'll be spending most of her time with are sweaty fifty-something camera guys who are more interested in how good the lighting is than sweeping her off her feet but she lets the fantasy linger. She stands up and embraces her friend, clinging to the person that she can no longer imagine her life without. And as Lily hugs her back just as tightly, Robin feels the tears beginning to sting at the back of her eyes. Both women are clutching onto a friendship that is about to irrevocably change, as nightly drinks become weekly Skype chats and long conversations over lunch become quick emails rushed off before dinner. The seven years of friendship suddenly don't feel like enough, and Robin doesn't fight the tears that slip down her cheeks as she reluctantly ends the embrace.

"You'll take of yourself over there, okay?" Marshall mutters as he hugs her, his huge frame dwarfing her. "Having a lawyer on speed dial isn't going to be much use when you're locked up in a Thai prison for accidentally smuggling drugs." She's pretty sure that isn't going to happen but she nods anyway. "And we're going to want lots of postcards and souvenirs so Marvin can see all the cool places his Aunt is visiting."

If she wasn't crying already, being referred to as Marvin's aunt is enough to set her off. These five people are the closest thing to family that she has and she can't imagine her life without them.

"I will. Whenever I come across one of those tacky baby-gros with a Union Jack or awful pun on, I'll send them your way."

"You'll call and Skype as much as you can, right?" Lily asks, wiping away her own tears and hugging her again.

"Every day. And I expect to find my voicemail full of angry messages from you if I ever forget."

"And don't go making friends with any blonde skinny British bitches while you're over there."

"Lily, if I do that then I'm going to need you to jump on the first plane to London and beat some sense into me. But no one can even begin to replace you so there's no point in them even trying."

"Good. Are you sure you don't want us to come to the airport with you tomorrow?"

"My flight's horrendously early and it'll be too much hassle. Plus I'm terrible at goodbyes and I'm rather not get on the plane in floods of tears."

That sets Lily off once more and the two hug again. It takes another few minutes of hugs and promises to talk every day before Marshall and Lily finally leave the bar. And then it's just her, Ted, and Barney, and she thinks that's the way things should end really. The three of them have been caught up in some odd not-quite-a-triangle triangle for the past seven years, and she's seen her future being entwined with each of them at one time or another. She loves them both in her own way, a way that she can't explain to anyone outside of the three of them, and she knows that love will never leave her. They may all move on to other people and drift apart over the years but there's a part of her heart that will always belong to them. They mean the world to her and she doesn't think she'll ever love anyone in the way that she loves them.

Barney waves the half empty bottle at Ted. "You got time for one more drink?"

Ted checks his watch and nods, watching as Barney pours the dark liquor into his empty glass. The three don't speak as they drink, choosing to allow the sounds of the bar to fill their booth instead. There's a contentment and familiarity to their actions that echo the many nights they spent down here together after Marshall and Lily sloped off. Somehow, against all odds, their weird and illogical friendship has survived its many bumps and bruises. Robin's past is littered with ex-boyfriends who have come and gone, some who have left their mark on her more than others, but these are the only two who've she's loved enough to never want to let go. Perhaps it isn't healthy to hold onto them like she has; in fact she knows it isn't. It's selfish and cruel because she can't let them go but she can't give them what they want either. Both men have put their heart on the line for her at one time or another and she's crushed each of them. Yet neither have let her go so maybe they need her just as much as she needs them. It probably seems twisted to someone on the outside looking in, like a cut you can't leave alone because you need to see if it really does hurt like you remember when you touch it, but it's the way they survive. Some nights it feels like she's taunting herself, looking at what she could have had but threw away, and other nights it feels like she gave one thing up in exchange for something better. Because she knows herself well enough to know that if she had given either man her whole heart like they wanted then she would have hurt them in the end and been left with nothing. And she'd rather take their friendship with a few regrets than nothing at all.

"It's the end of an era," are the words that finally break their silence as Ted places his glass on the table.

"Don't get all sentimental on me now, Ted," Barney says but his tone is lacking in the mockery that would normally be there. Because, however much they want to deny it, Ted's statement is true. This odd triangle has been a part of the group since the moment Barney tapped her on the shoulder and asked her whether she'd met Ted. It's a triangle littered with memories of blue French horns, drunken mistakes that weren't really mistakes, and break-ups that should have ruined a friendship but didn't. It's shifted and changed as their feelings did too, and she's not sure she could have ever imagined that this is where she would have ended up when she first met them all those years ago.

"He's right. I mean, the next time we're sat here, you'll be a married man and you'll probably be engaged at the very least. My boys all grown-up." The last part is meant to a joke but the lightness is missing from her tone and the sentiment hangs in the air between them. They are her boys; it's always been an implicit aspect of their group. Marshall is Lily's, and Ted and Barney are hers. It's selfish, her claiming them both and never letting them go, but she doesn't care. She loves them, and no matter how ugly that love may be, it's always going to be a part of her. Maybe that's why she's leaving. The idea of sitting back and watching them become someone else's is too painful for her to bear. Though that's a lie. Her love for Ted is no longer a romantic love, and the idea of watching him marry someone else is not the painful concept that it once was. No, her love for Ted isn't why she's leaving. Barney though, that's something else entirely, something she can't quite bring herself to truly consider.

Thankfully Ted's phone buzzes on the table, disturbing the sad peace that has fallen over the table. One quick glance at his face is enough to let her know that it's Victoria wondering where he is. So she downs her scotch and stands up, preparing for another goodbye to someone that she can't imagine her life without.

"New York is going to suck without you," he says, pulling her into a tight hug. "Is there nothing I can do to make you change your mind? I can probably make it rain for you again if I dance hard enough."

"That's almost a tempting offer, Mosby. I never did get to see your infamous rain dance."

"It was good, really good. But not good enough to make you stay?"

"Not this time. This is just something that I have to do. Like Argentina."

"Like Argentina," he echoes, hugging her again. "If you change your mind then hop on the first plane home and I'll be there to meet you, we all will."

She wants to tell him how much she's going to miss him and how the idea of not seeing him every day is ridiculous. She wants to let him know how important he is to her and how his faith in her is one of the reasons that she has enough confidence to take this leap. But the words won't come, leaving her with nothing to do but hold him tightly. Then he's pulling away, kissing her cheek, and telling her to take care. She watches him walk away, turning and giving her one last wave and small smile, and then he's gone.

She slumps back into her seat, her heart feeling empty, which is ridiculous because it's not like anyone's died, and she can't help but wonder whether she's making the biggest mistake of her life. There's nothing particularly wrong with her life and maybe it's silly to go running to the other side of the world. It's like she spends her whole life searching for something, even though she doesn't know what it is, and don't stories like that always end with the person failing to see that they had that thing all along? What if she gets to London and realises that she was happier in New York?

"Then you come home." She doesn't even realise she's said the last bit out loud until Barney speaks. He doesn't say anything else and she lets the silence linger as he refills her glass. It's just the two of them now and she waits for him to move to the other side of the booth or make his excuses and leave. He doesn't though. Instead, they sit there, her right leg pressing against his left, saying nothing and watching the people in the bar meander around them. She's hyper aware of how close he is to her, and her instinct is to lean into the warmth of his body. She brushes off that thought as nothing more than a drunken craving for familiarity and locks both hands around her glass of scotch, fixing her attention on the guy who's striking out with the hot young co-ed at the bar. As they watch the other customers, it almost feels like time is moving everywhere but where they are. If she wants, she can imagine that in this one tiny booth in this small bar in this huge city, time has stopped. There is no Quinn and no new job; there's no future with weddings and travel; there's only her and Barney. And just like that, the words are on the tip of her tongue. She wants to tell him everything she's been feeling, and how she hates that it seems like she's losing him. She wants to tell him that she's sorry for what happened in November and if she could change it then she would. She wants to tell him all the things that she's been far too scared to tell him for far too long. But then a drunken guy stumbles into their table, causing her drink to slosh out of the glass, and the moment is over. The words recede back into the corner of her brain where she normally locks them away and she finds herself with nothing else to say. Barney deserves more than some stilted half-hearted conversation filled with words that go unsaid. He means more to her than that but she has no idea how to tell him. The idea that she has to say goodbye to him tonight, letting go of everything that they once were, is something she can't quite deal with. How does she say goodbye to someone like Barney, someone she never imagined would ever come to mean as much to her as he does?

"This is weird, right? I didn't think I'd ever be saying goodbye to you."

She turns and looks at him, instinctively responding to the soft smile that's gracing his face. "I'm not sure I did either. You may have been a womanising ass when I first met you but now I kind of like having you around."

He tilts his head and raises his eyebrows, giving her an incredulous look. "Kind of?"

"Yeah you're right between Papaya King and Letterman on the things I'm going to miss most about this city."

He grins and sinks down in the booth and she joins him, not even thinking as she lets her head drop down onto his shoulder. He wraps an arm around her and rests his head on top of hers. His familiar scent surrounds her and she breathes it in, another memory to be stored away for the lonely nights ahead. Their position is familiar and intimate, something she knows she no longer has a right to but can't bring herself to give up. Instead, she shifts further into his comforting embrace.

"I'm going to miss you, Scherbatsky."

"I'm going to miss you too." She tries to keep her voice steady but it catches and she fails to stop a few tears escaping and slipping down her cheeks. He squeezes her shoulder, and his quiet sniff lets her know that she's not the only one being affected by this moment.

It's been a long and weird path that the two of them have been on, and whatever ending she pictured for them, she'd never quite envisioned it being this. It's almost like their story is incomplete, deprived of the proper ending it deserves. And as Carl rings the bell and tells everyone to go home, forcing them to break apart, she knows that that proper ending isn't going to come.

They make their way out of MacLaren's one last time with Robin sparing a last glance at the place that's been like a second home to her. Standing on the street, she knows how this would go if she were in a movie. The rain would start at exactly the right moment and the first few chords of some soft indie rock song would begin to play in the background. The courage to tell him everything she was feeling would finally come to her, or maybe he'd beg her not to go. All that would matter was that the right words would come at the right time in just the right combination and it would be enough. He'd tell her that he's never loved Quinn like he loves her, and she'd tell him that he's the reason she's leaving. As she told him that she didn't want to go, he'd tell her that he wants her to stay. Then they'd kiss in the rain, a moment to mark the beginning of the rest of their lives.

But her life isn't a romantic comedy. There's no epic kiss in the rain or last minute declaration of love. They stand on the street with him watching her as she hails a cab. The late hour hasn't made it any cooler meaning that her dress clings to her and leaves her craving a shower. And as a cab slows to a stop in front of them, he hugs her once more. It's a hug that should only last a moment or two but she clutches him tight, burying her face in his shoulder and breathing in his scent. He's holding her just as tightly and it's as if everything ceases to exist but the two of them. The hug is filled with words left unsaid and futures that might have been if only things had gone differently. She wants it to last forever, to never let go of this man who's come to mean so much to her, but the cab driver is tooting his horn and her flight leaves in a matter of hours.

"Go get 'em," he tells her as they break apart. His eyes are red and she's not sure that she can remember the last time she saw him cry.

All she can do is nod, and she risks grasping his hand tightly for a second before letting go and slipping into the cab, She's not even aware of giving the driver her address but he's pulling away from the street, away from Barney, and away from the life she's not even sure she wants to give up. In the movies the girl always tries to be strong but ends up looking back, and Robin can't resist allowing herself at least one cliché. So she turns and stares out of the back window as they merge into the New York traffic. Barney is still standing there, his gaze focused on their cab, with an unreadable expression on his face. And as the cab gets further and further away, until Barney is nothing more than an indistinguishable dot, Robin can't help but wonder if she's making a huge mistake.

* * *

Her apartment is dark and empty when she gets back. There are times when she misses living with someone but now is not one of them. Because as she shuts the door, she slides down to sit on the floor and cries harder than she can remember crying in years. There are no tears slipping down her cheeks or quiet sniffs here. No, it's the sort of crying where it doesn't feel like it's ever going to be possible to stop. Her shoulders shake as heavy sobs tear through her body. The cries escaping from her sound like they're coming from someone who cannot possibly be her, and she clamps a hand to her mouth but it isn't enough. Rather than slowing, the sobs intensify and she gasps for air, which only makes her sobs even louder. She's not the sort of person that cries like this, she never has been, but she can't seem to stop. Her nose is blocked and her cheeks are soaked with tears. The neighbours probably think she's being murdered. And yet the tears just keep coming.

Because she's realised exactly why she's taking the job and the reason is one that's of no use to her now. Sure she'd have admitted that Barney's engagement was a contributing factor if someone had held a gun to her head but it was nothing more than that. She really believed that. Now though, she's sat on the floor of her apartment, sobbing over a guy who's she in love with but who's preparing to marry someone else. All the other reasons for taking the job, the great opportunities and the chances to travel, pale in comparison to the fact that it's less painful to leave than it is to sit and watch Barney be in love with someone that isn't her.

She's never wanted to be this person and a part of her hates Barney for making her into this sobbing wreck. But she knows deep down that that hatred is misdirected. The only reason she's sat sobbing on the floor is because she's been too scared to go after what she really wants. Rather than taking the metaphorical leap and jumping into this thing for real, she's pushed Barney away time and time again. She's been selfish and hurt him, safe in the knowledge that he'll never leave her. They'd slept together and she'd kicked him out the next morning, knowing that she could act like nothing had happened and he'd play along. He'd finally told her how he felt and she had played his own feelings against him, forcing him to settle for her friendship and nothing more. And when they'd finally given them a real go, she'd bailed when things became about more than just two friends having sex. Lily had told them that they were getting into the real stuff and she had run, relegating him back to the role of friend without any real closure or consideration for what he wanted. Now, when she looks back, she can see that she was pushing her luck after that and that November was one step too far. You can only keep pushing for so long before something snaps. The guy she had selfishly thought would always be there for her had suddenly moved on. And all that she's left with is the horrifying realisation that her cowardice has cost her something she hadn't even realised she truly wanted.

The words that she's been pushing back since that afternoon on the street corner when she got the first glimpse of what life without Barney would be like, and how she wishes that that one glance had been enough to give her the push she needed, are forcing their way forward again, reminding her of how they've been there, waiting, as she ignored them. Only now there's no one to share them with. The image of Barney letting himself into his apartment where Quinn is waiting for him floats into her mind. It hangs there, taunting her, as her unsaid words grow louder in her head. It's all too much and she curses before standing up and heading to the kitchen in search of some alcohol. Thankfully, her tendency to stash alcohol and cigarettes doesn't let her down. She retrieves a bottle of crappy wine left over from Christmas and a packet of squashed cigarettes from the top of the cupboard over the sink. Tumbling back onto the sofa, she twists the cap off the wine and takes a large swig, cringing at the awful taste. A few puffs of a cigarette and swigs of wine later and the voices in her head have dulled. But her head still pounds, tears still fall down her cheeks, and the voices are still there, just quieter now. The thoughts continue, piling up and desperately fighting to get out. They swarm in her mind, demanding her attention after being neglected for so long. So, she reaches for the discarded legal pad on her coffee table and begins to write all the things she'll never have the courage to say.

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I've been selfish and that I've been such a bad friend. Because a good friend would be there for you on the biggest day of your life, just like an unselfish...selfless?..one would. But I can't be either of these things, at least not right now. I fucked up. It's as simple as that. I royally fucked up, which I'm only realising now. It's stupid that I'm only realising it now, but better late than never and all that crap. _

_When I told you no in November, it was because I was scared. I know that it's not a good reason but it's the truth. You're one of the only people in the world who knows all my flaws and I hate that. I really hate it. Knowing someone's flaws means that you know their weaknesses, and isn't it better when someone doesn't think you're a fucked up mess? I chose Kevin because he didn't see the mess I really am; you did. And how long can you love someone when you know everything that's wrong with them? Kevin loved me for the person he thought I was and the person I wanted to be and you loved me for the person I really am. And I fucked up because I chose the ideal over the reality. Oh fuck, that makes me sound like Ted. But it's the truth. If I had chosen you that night then I would have chosen to make us something real. We weren't real before, were we? We played at a relationship and pretended we were the best couple ever. I don't think we really knew what we were doing though. You said that two awesomes cancel each other but I don't think that's true. I think it's more that two fucked up people can't get together and expect everything to magically work out. We didn't try and it was inevitable that it was going to blow up in our faces. _

_I wish…I wish that I hadn't thrown it away so quickly. Or that I'd at least had the courage to give us another try. I was terrified though. If I'd gone all in and really tried at a proper relationship with you and then it had failed, I'd have lost you forever. And that's why I'm a selfish person because I'd rather hurt you and have your friendship than risk not having you in my life at all. Losing you was never an option for me. The idea of my life without you seems insane. I woke up one morning and suddenly you had this permanent place in my life. I didn't want to throw that away. So I pushed you away, hurt you, and waited for you to come back. That's the sort of thing I do and I hate it. I'm sorry because I never wanted to hurt you. If I could go back to that night then I would have done things differently, I know that_ now.

_If I could go back to that night then I would have found the courage I needed and I'd have broken up with Kevin. I'd have come into the bar alone, and we'd have given us a second try. I would have done that because I can't imagine a way that it wouldn't be better than how things are now. I chose Kevin because I saw picking you as a path to losing you one day. But I've lost you anyway, haven't I? I blinked and suddenly you've become someone else's. I wasn't lying when I told you that I'm happy for you, I really am. But that doesn't mean I can't hate it all too. I hate seeing you with her and being reminded of what I threw away. The irony is that I never even realised how much I needed you until it was too late. And I don't need people, that's not who I am. I've never needed someone like I need you and I hate it. I hate you for making me need you. It's not fair. _

_I'm writing all this down because I could never tell you face to face. Maybe it's cowardice or maybe it's just not in my nature. Whatever it is, I can't tell you this stuff because it isn't fair. I made my choice and there are some choices that you just have to live with; this is one of them. I've messed you around one too many times and that negates any right I once had to intrude on your life. You deserve to be happy, and if Quinn gives you that happiness then I'm happy for you. I'd never want you to be unhappy. But I love you too much to sit here and watch you marry someone else. I wish I could be strong enough to do that but I just can't. Don't hate me for that. The truth is that I'm not leaving; I'm running. I can't sit by and watch you be in love with someone else. It hurts too much. So I'm running away instead. I'm sorry. _

The pen slips from her grasp and she stares at the scrawl that covers the page, the ramblings of a drunk and heartbroken woman. A bitter laugh escapes her lips because whoever wrote that certainly isn't Robin Scherbatsky. She's not sure she even recognises the person behind those words. The words cover the page, heartbreakingly familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Is this who she's become after everything? Because if it is, she doesn't like it. She doesn't like it one bit. Maybe she is running away and maybe that's normally the coward's way out. This time though, it seems like the right thing to do. If she's become the person who keeps stuff like that inside then a fresh start is in order. Because she doesn't want to be that person and London offers her the chance to stop being like that.

The paper crumples in her hand and she tosses it away, feeling no relief from the writing or the discarding of it. She settles for stubbing out her cigarette and stumbling towards bed. There's enough of her brain unaffected by alcohol for her to check that her alarm is set and then she passes out without even getting under the covers. And when she still manages to oversleep the next morning, causing her to juggle showering with teeth brushing and dressing with drinking scalding hot coffee before she has to race out of the door to catch her flight, she doesn't even give the crumpled piece of paper a second thought.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I'm sorry this chapter took longer to come about than the last one. The past two weeks have been nuts. I was revising for and then taking my last ever university exam. And then, when that was done, my laptop started to die so I had to buy a new one. Then I had to pack up my university house and move back home. So I really haven't had much free time whatsoever. Also, this chapter wouldn't come together, no matter how hard I tried. My muse was desperate to get onto chapter four and kept refusing to write this chapter. I got 2500 words into it this afternoon before deleting it all because I hated it. But it is here now. It's a more transitional chapter that's getting everything into place for chapters four and five. And I know I swore Barney's perspective is coming but it just didn't fit into this chapter. I have the two other two chapters planned out and you're going to get plenty of insight into how Barney's been feeling about everything in those.

I want to say thank you again for all the reviews and alerts. It's crazy to me that people like this story as much as they do, and it means a huge amount to me. I really appreciate every single review I get. So thank you so much.

Finally, I want to fact check a couple of things before the next two chapters. I know Barney told Robin he loved her in _Benefits_ and Robin did her whole 'You're an idiot' thing in _Robin 101_. But has Robin ever said the words 'I love you' to Barney except for when she was Mosby-ing him in _The Leap_? I know they had that talk in _Challenge Accepted _but even then she didn't actually say the three little words IIRC. I feel like a terrible B/R fan for not knowing but I feel like the answer is no and I want to double check. I thought it might be in _The Rough Patch_ which I've only seen once and refuse to ever watch again. And following on from that, I need a little bit of help from someone with a good working knowledge of _The Rough Patch_. If you've been able to stand watching it more than once and don't mind a vague spoiler for this story then please let me know in a review. Thanks!

I've gone on for far too long now so I shall shut up and present you with the new chapter.

* * *

_"Don't waste your time looking back on what you've lost. Move on,  
for life is not meant to be travelled backwards." -Unknown_

* * *

As her alarm blares out the same irritating pop song that's been on the radio all week, Robin blearily opens her eyes to be greeted with the sight of dark hair and a muscular tanned back. She can vaguely make out last night's dress lying discarded on the floor along with a pair of heels that tend to cause her crippling amounts of pain. There are black smears on her pillow alerting her to the fact that she forgot to take her make-up off last night, and her body aches in a comfortingly familiar way. She stretches, feeling her muscles pop, and rolls over, making sure to knock against her bed companion as she does. He lets out a quiet groan and nestles further into the pillow, seemingly undisturbed by her movement. Her room is a mess as always with clothes randomly scattered along with collections of paper filled with facts for each of her interviews. The intention to tidy up is always there but it has a tendency to drop behind every other priority in her life. Even as she tosses yesterday clothes into the laundry basket, her brain is mentally running through the key facts she needs to know before she interviews the American that won a gold medal in archery yesterday.

Since arriving in London, her life has been a crazy blur. The Olympics have left her busier than she's ever been. Every day she's interviewing some athlete or other and covering the latest sporting achievements. Her bosses seem to be impressed with what she's doing because they keep handing her more responsibility, and her reports have become a regular part of the evening broadcasts at World Wide News. Her career is at the best it has ever been and she knows that she's thriving out here. Working in the studio had given her the buzz for live television but being out on the streets is a whole other experience. And it's not like Metro News One where she was interviewing street vendors and carriage drivers. Last week she interviewed the entire team of Chinese gymnasts, and she's been getting hints from her boss that they're trying to arrange something with Usain Bolt. This is the big leagues now and she loves it.

The radio switches to some One Direction song and she turns it up and drags open the curtains. The combination of loud music and bright sunlight should be enough to make further sleep impossible. The lump under her covers emits another groan and a leg flies out as he rolls over. She watches as he stretches an arm out to reach for her before stopping as he feels empty sheets beneath his hand.

"Mmm, what are you doing? Come back to bed." His voice is heavy with sleep as he calls out for her but she ignores the hand he's holding out to her.

"I have to get ready for work. And you need to go."

"Last night was fun."

His grin suggests he has no intention of leaving and she suppresses a groan. She hates ones like this. Sometimes she thinks it would be easier to just go back to theirs but she hates the idea of having to make the mad dash across London to get back to her place before work. Life would be easier if guys could just get hint and take off.

"Look I didn't want to have to do this but my husband is going to be back soon."

"What?" he asks as he sits up quickly. The duvet falls to his waist giving her an ample view of his muscular chest which she can't help but admire. Now she remembers why she brought him home last night. "You're married?"

"Yes I am. And my husband's a policeman who's going to be back from work any minute. Something tells me he's not going to be happy to find you here."

The lie easily rolls off her tongue and the rapidness with which he leaps from her bed lets her know that it's been effective as always. He's shrugging on his jeans when she casually lets slip about her husband's anger management issues, which causes him to leg it out of her room with his shoes in hand and shirt only half done up.

"Bye!" she calls out as she hears the door slam shut behind him.

"Do you always have to scare them away like that?" Her flatmate, Rebecca, pops her head around the door and gives a small look of disgust at the state of Robin's room. "That one was just a baby."

"It's a shame really; he was pretty cute. But I hate when they're eager to stick around and cuddle or make breakfast."

"You've got what you wanted and they're no longer necessary?"

"Exactly," Robin laughs.

She was lucky when she landed Rebecca as a flatmate. Her job's something technical that Robin doesn't really understand. But it means she works crazy hours and is always under a huge amount of stress. It also means she has a tendency to blow off steam by partying like she's still in college. She comes from some super privileged family which means she's on the list for all these horribly expensive clubs, and somehow Robin finds herself being dragged along to a different one every few days. Rebecca always claims it's because she can't go to them alone but she seems to know everyone in them. Robin knows it probably has something to do with the fact that she was horribly depressed her entire first week in London and ended up telling Rebecca all her problems when they got drunk in a local pub one night after work. If she had had her way, she would have ended up spending the whole three months here feeling sorry for herself. And she would have hated herself for it. Rebecca has forced her to stop moping about and, though she was reluctant at the start, it's turned out be just what she needs.

'As long as they're not stealing my food or using the hot water when I need it then what do I care,' had been her response when some random guy had stumbled out of Robin's room in the early hours of the morning three weeks ago. It's become a part of their routine just like Rebecca's friend Jed crashing on their couch and the stray cat that constantly seems to find his way into their top floor flat.

"While I would love to stand around and discuss my sexual habits with you, I've got an hour to get dressed and get across London."

"Yeah like that's going to happen with rush hour," Rebecca tells her with a laugh before disappearing back into her own room, already impeccably dressed and ready for work.

As Robin undresses and climbs into the hot shower, she allows herself to contemplate the idea that's been running through her mind over the past week. Whenever Lily calls and they talk about her future after London, she always shares ideas over what her next assignment might be and how excited she is. But the truth is that London is pretty damn amazing. It might have only been a month but there's something about the city that just clicks. She loves living here with Rebecca and the city has already started to feel like home. The bartender at the pub up the road knows her name and drink, as does the local Starbucks barista. The guy in the apartment below hers is a hockey fanatic and they've started to spend Sunday mornings watching re-runs of old games, something Rebecca drags herself along to because she's fancied him for months. And she's begun to make friends with some of the other journalists working the Olympics who always head to the pub after work. A routine has been formed and she finds herself enjoying it. And now, with the first month of her assignment done, she's not even sure that she wants to move on. When she had first taken the job, the idea of travelling the world seemed exciting. But suddenly the nomadic lifestyle is losing its appeal and she's not even sure if she wants to leave London.

* * *

The tube is overcrowded due to the obscene amount of tourists all trying to make their way to the Olympic stadium for today's events. Robin finds herself sandwiched between a Japanese couple who are talking at an alarmingly fast rate and an overweight Texan who's rambling on to his wife about how all the events are rigged. It's all too much for this early in the morning and she clutches at her coffee, willing the extra espresso shot to work its magic. Her plan had been to run through her interview notes one last time on the way to work but the crowded train makes that impossible. And the fact that her iPod is out of battery only makes the journey ten times worse.

Her iPhone is poking out of the side pocket of her purse and she settles on a game of Connect Four to pass the time, cursing the lack of signal on the Underground. At least the journey would feel vaguely productive if she could catch up on the news. But before she can load the game she notices a small circular 1 above the messages section. It's alerting her to another obscenely long text from Lily. Whenever the time difference leaves Robin fast asleep while Lily is up with Marvin, it tends to lead to long rambling texts waiting to greet her in the morning.

_Marshall's mother called this morning to tell me how she had all her children sleeping through the night at this point. Well bully for her. I would have sworn at her if Marshall hadn't pulled the phone away before I could say anything. Does she think that I like being up at two in the morning to feed my son? I love my son but I really miss sleep. How's London? Have you slept with any muscular athletes yet? Let me live vicariously through you! I want details! I should go to sleep. I've got to go wedding dress shopping tomorrow. Call me! I miss you! x_

The last few words cause a familiar pain to form in her gut and she quickly exits her message before she can focus on the words. She swore she wasn't going to fixate anymore and she's not going to let one message break her promise. Her phone is shoved back into her bag and she sips at her coffee, forcing her mind to focus on something else. She counts the people in the carriage. Then she recites every winner of the Stanley Cup over the past fifty years. And by the time she gets to recalling the lyrics to Let's Go to the Mall, the train is pulling into her station. She fights her way to the doors, determined to avoid the swell of tourists who will all be heading to the stadium too, and by the time she's tapped Nick on the shoulder, a fellow journalist who's been covering the same events and just emerged from the next carriage, wedding dress shopping is the furthest thing from her mind.

* * *

The interview with the archer is something of a disaster. She's aware of the meticulous concentration that the sport requires but she had hoped he would be a bit lighter away from the field, especially considering his win the day before. But his answers are short and snippy and he has a frustrating tendency to avoid actually answering her question. Unlike the other athletes she's interviewed who have all had a fun story to tell about discovering their talent as a child, he cuts her off with a comment about how it's no sport for children. And that leads him into a rant about how 'popcorn movies that appeal to the uneducated masses,' his words not hers, have devalued the sport of archery. She casually crosses out her question about his feelings on the rise in archery's popularity after_ The Hunger Games _and _The Avengers_, and makes a note for Richard about how the tape is going to need some editing. A gold medal winner labelling the American public 'morons' for enjoying two of the most popular films in recent years isn't going to come across too well.

She thanks him for his time before leaving him grumbling to his manager. The next interviewer, some young French guy who's already fucked up a good number of his interviews, is next in and she wishes him good luck, giving him a sympathetic pat on the back as he goes in.

"Not a good interview I'm guessing?" Jemima asks as she hands her a fresh coffee. The two had bonded over being the only two Canadian women sent over to London and frequently spent their breaks complaining about their interviewees and fellow colleagues.

"It was a nightmare. You'd think the guy had been forced to come and take part in all of this."

"Well you're better off than me. I was interviewing this diver who spent the whole interview staring at my breasts. I don't think he even listened to a word I was saying."

"Why are we doing this job again?"

"Because we're idiots who thought living in London for a few months would be exotic and exciting. And because the nice guys outweigh the assholes but we seem to be on a hot streak with the latter at the moment."

Robin swings herself up onto the window ledge and sips at her coffee. "That runner from Kenya yesterday was pretty nice. I swear some of the camera guys had tears in his eyes when he told the story about how he wanted to win for his mum who died last year."

"See, why can't they all be like that?"

"Because then our jobs would be easy and everyone would be trying to do it. We're here because we're the only ones who can put up with these privileged assholes."

"Don't let Miranda here you talking like that or she'll send you back into hell."

'Hell' is the term they all use to describe the horrendous task of being assigned the job of going and interviewing random members of the crowd on the way in and out of the stadium. Miranda, who is in charge of arranging what networks get what interviews when, uses the job as a way of punishing journalists who get on the wrong side of her. Nick had had to do it last week when he'd knocked it into her and spilt coffee down her shirt. Some of them were convinced that she'd even arranged to have the little boy throw up on his shoes mid-interview as an act of revenge.

"Don't even joke about that. If I never have to do it again then it'll be too soon. But I have a meeting with Miranda this afternoon so it's probably going to be my turn again."

"Well I have something that might cheer you up." The look on Jemima's face tells Robin that this is what the entire purpose of their conversation has been all along. "I have somebody who wants to date you."

"No."

"You can't just say no! You don't even know what he's like."

"Jemima, I have seen the type of people you hang out with. Your boyfriend has a ponytail and wears hemp. We are not into the same type of guys."

"Matt is nothing like Billy! And what's wrong with hemp?"

"I'm going to go ahead and assume that that was a rhetorical question."

"Look Matt is really great. I think you two would be really good together. He's a human rights lawyer so he's super smart and kind. And he's into all this sporty stuff. He cycles and he climbs. He even ran the London marathon last year! Plus he's hot and sweet and funny and totally desperate to go on a date with you."

Robin stars at her dubiously. "He's desperate to go out with me?"

"He is. I told him about you a couple of weeks ago and he told me to set something up. And he's been asking about you whenever I see him at the gym."

"You met him at the gym? And if he's so great, why aren't you going out with him?"

"I would be if I wasn't with Billy. Hell I'd even contemplate dumping Billy for him. And what's wrong with meeting someone at the gym? I've met plenty of interesting people at the gym."

"You met Billy at the gym!"

"That was different. He was handing out towels and signing people up for new membership. Matt was lifting weights and running and stuff. Come on, one date. I swear you'll like him."

Robin sips at her coffee again and the no is on the tip of her tongue. She's not looking for anything serious and that's why she always kicks the guy from the night before out the next morning. A relationship is the last thing she wants right now. She opens her mouth to tell Jemima thanks but no thanks when Lily's text floats into her mind. 3000 miles away, Quinn is going to be waking up and getting ready to go and buy her wedding dress. That thought is enough for Robin to tell Jemima, "Sure. Go ahead and see if he's free tonight."

* * *

By the time Robin gets back to her apartment, she's riding on a high. Her second interview of the day had been far more successful than the first. That had been followed by a meeting with Miranda who, rather than assigning her to audience interviews, had let her know that everything had fallen into place and she would be interviewing Usain Bolt in three days' time. Then Jemima had let her know that Matt was free tonight, had booked dinner at a small Italian restaurant, and would be picking her up around eight. All in all it had turned into a surprisingly good day.

Though of course the universe couldn't be nice and just let her have a decent day. However, she remains blissfully unaware of the impending crappiness until she's about halfway through getting ready for her date.

The tube is relatively empty when she gets on which allows her to get a seat and lose herself in the copy of _The Help_ which she's been carting around but never actually reading. And the sun is shining when she gets off meaning she can't resist taking the longer walk home through the park. It's hard not to be a good mood when the weather is this nice. She's not even fazed by the envelope written in her mother's familiar handwriting which rests on the top of their pile of post.

The hot shower washes away the grime from the journey home, and she even goes as far as stealing some of Rebecca's horrendously expensive conditioner. She slathers on expensive moisturiser and scrunches serum into her hair to let it curl in a way she knows suits her. It's been forever since she's been on a proper date and there's no harm in going all out for once.

The prep is only derailed by her stomach growling loudly. Shrugging on her dressing grown, she abandons clothing choices in favour of heating up some of last night's leftovers. The steady hum of the microwave offers a comfortable break from the silence of the apartment, and she uses the time it takes for her food to cook to sort through the mail. Most of it's for Rebecca and a disappointing amount seem to be bills. It's all regular mundane stuff until Robin's fingers brush against a thick cream envelope which seems out of place amongst the bills and catalogues.

Her name and address are written on the front in large print, and she knows what's inside without even needing to look. But the masochist in her forces her to open the envelope. Inside is a piece of thick cream card with gold and black cursive writing.

_Quinn Garvey_

_And_

_Barney Stinson_

_Would like to invite you to their wedding_

_At the Rose Acre Hotel_

_New York_

_On Saturday 1__st__ September 2012_

_At 2P.M._

Yes, that's a pretty effective way to ruin a good mood.

* * *

Robin is sat on the floor in her dressing gown with a now cold bowl of stir fry in her lap when Rebecca gets home. The wedding invitation lies next to her, frustratingly undamaged by her attempts to tear it into tiny pieces. She doesn't say a word when Rebecca asks her what's wrong. Instead, the invitation is given as explanation enough. It garners a, "oh," from Rebecca who promptly slides down onto the floor next to her.

It's as if the invitation is forcing Robin to pay attention to it. However hard she tries, she can't seem to stop reading the words over and over again. Maybe it's seeing their names paired together on something so formal, or the date which is scarily soon. Whatever it is, it feels like Robin's been punched in the gut.

"So what are you going to do?" Rebecca eventually asks after the silence has gone on for far too long.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what are you going to do? Are you intending to jump on a plane back to New York tonight? You could find Barney and tell him exactly how you feel. Or is there going to be some elaborate plan where you crash the wedding at the exact moment when they ask if anyone objects?"

"I'm not doing either of those things," she says after a moment.

"That's what I thought. So exactly what do you expect to achieve by sitting here?"

Rebecca's harsh tone surprises her. "I don't know! I just need to process this."

"Process what? It's not news that he's getting married. You can't sit around feeling sorry for yourself."

"I know I can't. But I love him and this stupid piece of paper makes it real."

"Makes what real?"

"That I'm losing him forever." Her voices catches and she blinks rapidly as she feels tears forming in her eyes.

Rebecca embraces her tightly and says, "oh sweetie," in a tone filled with such sympathy that Robin feels embarrassed over being such a mess.

"I just…It's Barney. I guess a part of me thought he'd never actually go through with this wedding. But he's really doing it. He's really going to marry her."

"Sweetie, listen to me. It sucks. It really sucks. I've never felt towards anyone what you feel for Barney. And I wish things were different. But they're not. If you're not going to fight for him…"

"It's not about fighting for him," Robin interrupts. "It's that I had my chance, a lot of chances, and I blew them all. I broke his heart in the worst way possible and that destroys any right I could have had to try and win him back. I want him to be happy and that means letting him go. All I do is hurt him."

"Okay," Rebecca says with a sigh. "Then you can't sit around here feeling sorry for yourself. You have to move on. And moving on doesn't mean continuing to hook up with all these random guys. You've got a date tonight right?"

"Yeah but I'm going to cancel. I'm just not in the right frame of my mind for a first date."

"No. Listen to me. You are a gorgeous, funny, intelligent young woman and any man would be lucky to date you. You can sit around here and feel sorry for yourself about the fact that your ex is marrying someone else or you can go on a date with this cute lawyer that you might have an actual future with. Trust me, only one of those things is going to make you feel good about yourself in the morning. Hint: it's not the first one."

"I don't know. I don't want to be the sort of person that mopes around over an ex but it's hard not to be."

"It's not that hard. Get up off the floor, chuck that invitation in the bin, and banish Barney from your mind. It's his loss, not yours. You're going to put on that black dress you bought last week that looks incredible on you and a pair of sinfully high heels. Then you're going to go on that date and be the best version of you possible. Blow Matt away. And when you get back, I will be waiting to drink wine and dissect every little thing he did and said. Okay?"

There's a part of Robin, the part of Robin that sat and wept on her living room floor the night before she moved away, that wants to say no. That part of Robin wants to grab all the alcohol she can find and bury herself under her duvet for a week. But the other part of Robin, the part that decided to move to London and let Barney be happy, knows that she needs to do what Rebecca says. Nothing good is going to come from letting the sadness over losing Barney eat away at her.

"You're right. It'll be good for me," she says with a smile.

Her legs ache as she stands up and she stretches, rolling her back. She reads the invitation one more time, the pain in her gut no less painful than before, and then drops it into the rubbish. For good measure she grabs her stir fry and empties it on top of it. She won't admit it but there's something vaguely satisfying about watching the soy sauce seep over Quinn's name.

* * *

_Meanwhile in New York…_

Marshall's voice is impatient as he asks, "Lily, where are you?" and she can hear Marvin screaming in the background.

Her heart clenches at the sound of her son crying and she shoves the wet bowls into the cupboard; they'll dry on their own.

"I'm at Robin's. Someone's coming to look at her apartment and she wanted me to make sure it was tidy. And I promised I'd grab her mail and stuff."

"Okay. But hurry, we miss you."

"Is it more that Marvin's got a dirty diaper and you don't want to change it?" she asks, knowing her husband well enough to know when he's hiding something.

"It's a little bit that. But we do miss you."

"I miss you two too. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm almost done here anyway."

She hangs up and shoves her phone and the mail into her bag.

It's strange to be in her friend's apartment without her around. It's only been a month since Robin left but it feels like forever. The different time zones have made it harder to chat like they used, and they've begun to settle for texts and emails over phone calls. Robin's job and Lily's new responsibilities make regular contact that much harder than it would have been a year ago. A year ago, Lily could have used the school holidays to go to London for a week and see how her friend was doing. Now the most that she can hope for is that Robin's job will bring her back to New York for at least a few days after the London stuff is done.

She loves Marshall and Marvin but the lack of female company is driving her insane. Quinn and her have tried hanging out but they just don't click. It's all awkward and she never really knows what to say to her. It's easier between her and Victoria but her and Ted are still in that honeymoon phase so she's not really up for hanging out with Lily and a screaming two-month-old baby. No, Robin is the person she really wants to spend time with right now, but she's on the other side of the world.

The apartment is relatively tidy but Lily shoves some magazines back under the coffee table and throws a couple of empty wine bottles and a crushed cigarette pack into a trash bag. She tosses a yellow legal pad on top of the pile of magazines as well and neatens the cushions on the couch. The trash chute is on her way out and so she heads for the door, giving the kitchen and living room one last look to make sure everything is in place. She's about to leave when she spots a crumpled piece of paper that's lying on the floor. It's about to join the rest of the rubbish when some of the barely visible writing grabs her attention. Opening it, she gives the writing a cursory glance. And then she stops and reads the final few words again. And then once more. Whatever she expected to see, it wasn't this.

Crying baby and desperate husband forgotten for a moment, Lily sits on the sofa and reads the letter that was never supposed to be seen by anyone.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **We're coming to the end of this story now and there's only going to be one or two more chapters after this one. This chapter is a break from the way I normally structure the chapters in that we break away from Robin's perspective for a considerable amount of time. If it isn't clear from the times that mark each section, the sections are paired together. The first shows what is happening in New York at one specific time and the second shows what is happening in London at the same time.

As always, thank you so much for all the reviews. They're the only real signal I get about how my story is going so I love hearing from all of you. If you like this story enough to alert or favourite it then I would love to know what it is that you liked. Even if it's just two or three words, it's good to know that I'm not writing this story for a non-existent audience. Also my quote searching caused me to stumble upon one that's got me plotting my next HIMYM fic so any feedback on this one is really appreciated.

And now here's another worryingly long chapter.

* * *

"_Picture back to a year ago and the situation you were in. Look at how things are different yet somehow everything it still in someway cognate. Everything connects together to form the balance of life, to maintain structure. Change is and always will be inevitable, but everything is relative, and all the moments and times in your life will come back around again, you just might find yourself on the other side of the coin. Things are always changing, as fast as everything stays the same." -Donald Miller_

* * *

_16:00 – New York, USA._

"Lily, are you even listening to me?" Marshall asks as he peers through the kitchen doorway to look at his wife. She doesn't respond or even acknowledge that he's spoken. It's been like this on and off for the past few weeks with her drifting off into her own world. He walks towards her, waves a hand in front of her face, and says, "Earth to Lily."

She jumps and seems surprised to find him standing in front of her. A reassuring smile is all he gains for his efforts and she soon drifts off into her thoughts once more. It only takes a moment for her to start twisting her wedding ring around on her finger again, a sure sign that something is bothering her. Lily has never been one to keep secrets but she's been reluctant to share whatever is on her mind. Casually dropped hints that he's here if she wants to talk have achieved nothing, and neither has directly asking her what's wrong. So he settles for a new approach. He sits down on the couch next to her and quietly waits.

Ten minutes of silence follow and he's not even sure if she's aware of him sitting next to her. The ring twisting continues but that's it. He shifts on the couch and waits some more. Another five minutes pass along with more ring twisting and silence from Lily. Whatever is on her mind is something that she would rather plague herself with than anyone else. He's about to give up, leaning forward to reach for the remote, when she speaks.

"What would you do," she starts hesitantly, "if you knew something that somebody else didn't?"

Of course her first sentence on the mysterious problem would be something as vague and abstract like that.

"Like what?"

"Like a piece of information that one person never meant anybody else to know about. But now you know and you don't know whether you should tell a certain other person that information."

It's like she's talking in riddles.

"Okay, well is this piece of information something that could hurt somebody?"

"It could. But it could also make somebody really happy, potentially. And that's the problem."

"Lily, what is it you know?"

"I can't tell you!"

"You can tell me anything."

She turns towards him and shakes her head. "No, I can't. Because if I tell you this then you're going to tell me that I shouldn't meddle. And I've wanted to tell you for weeks but I haven't told you or anyone because it's not my place to. But maybe it is my place because Robin's never going to say anything and it's going to be too late soon. So maybe this is one of those times that I actually need to meddle."

"So it's something to do with Robin?" he asks, triumphant at having garnered at least one fact about what is bothering his wife.

Her sigh is confirmation enough. He waits for her to speak and she opens her mouth before catching herself and stopping. It takes another minute for her to speak again.

"If I tell you, you have to swear not to tell anyone else. I'm not supposed to know about it and I wish I didn't because it's too much responsibility." He nods. "You remember when I went to Robin's last month to tidy up for that potential sub-letter? It was the night before Marvin came down with that cold." He nods again. "Well I found this piece of paper that Robin had obviously meant to throw away. It was a letter to Barney telling him how she felt. She was saying how she loved him and that she couldn't stand to see him marry someone else. She was going on about how she wished she hadn't rejected him and that she'd made a huge mistake. And I'm guessing she never even intended to send it to him but now I have it and I don't know what I should do."

And suddenly his wife's constant distraction seems completely understandable.

"Robin's still in love with Barney?"

"Yes. The whole reason she left for London is that he's getting married to Quinn and she loves him too much to watch that happen. And of course Robin had to be Robin and run instead of fighting for him like any normal person would."

"But he's with Quinn. They're getting married tomorrow!"

"I know! That's my whole problem. I've been trying to decide whether to give him the letter or not for weeks. And now it's make or break time. I swore I wouldn't meddle in people's relationships anymore but is it really meddling? It's not like I'm faking an affair or anything. It would just be letting him know all the facts."

"You want to give him the letter?" he asks incredulously. "You can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because he's in love with Quinn and he's marrying her tomorrow. Robin had her chance with him and he's happy with someone else now. You can't mess with that. Barney's made his choice and he's happy."

"But he loved Robin once and maybe he still does. I can't let him marry Quinn without him knowing how Robin feels. She's my best friend and I've got to do it if she won't."

"Did you ever think that maybe there's a reason that she didn't give Barney the letter? If she wanted him to know how she felt then wouldn't she have just told him?" She opens his mouth to protest but he shakes his head. "Don't interfere in this, Lily. He's happy now and he won't thank you for it."

Any chance she has to argue is lost when Marvin's cries become audible. His demand for food leaves their discussion on the backburner and Lily rocks him slowly as Marshall heats the formula. But as they feed their son and talk about what to have for dinner, Lily can't stop her mind from drifting back to the crinkled piece of yellow paper that's sandwiched between the pages of the book at the bottom of her bag.

* * *

_21:00 – London, England._

The romantic atmosphere in the restaurant is almost stifling with the flickering candles on every table and cheap string music playing in the background. The cloying smell of roses is heavy in the air and it's as if every romantic cliché has been forced into this one room. However, as Robin gazes around the room and takes in all the loved up couples occupying the various tables, it's as if she is the only one bothered by the restaurant that seems as if it's just been pulled from a Gary Marshall movie. Even Matt seems to be enchanted by it all. She looks towards him, a biting comment on the tip of her tongue, when she sees the smile on his face as he watches a violinist serenading a couple in the far corner. Swallowing her comment, she turns her attention back to her steak. Their table falls into silence again as she struggles for something to say.

And that's the problem. On paper, Matt is the perfect guy. He's everything that Jemima said he would be: smart, attractive, funny, attentive. It should all make for a great relationship. But, however hard she tries, there's just no spark between them. He makes her laugh and he's great to talk to, but she never finds herself working to impress him or thinking about him when he's not around. The thing that she's supposed to feel when it's right isn't there. It's not as if she hasn't tried to feel it. Life would be wonderfully easy if her and Matt clicked in the way they're supposed to.

Yet she can't bring herself to end it. Every time he arranges another date or invites her back to his, she finds herself saying yes. It's not something that she's proud of but it's comforting to know that there's someone who wants to see her after work. Matt makes her feel wanted and that's not something she's been feeling a lot of over the past few months. So maybe it's selfish to string him along but it's not like selfishness is an anomaly for her. Her hope that a job might open up in London has not yet been realised and so it's not as if the relationship is going to be a long-term thing. Her London gig is up in a fortnight and there's talk of her being sent to Brussels or Hong Kong next. A long distance relationship isn't going to be a factor in that, so what harm is there in sticking with Matt for a couple more weeks? He might not be the love of her life but she has a good time with him.

However, it's obvious that he's falling for her in a way that she isn't him. Their dates have slowly become more frequent and his eagerness to spend time with her is apparent. She spent the night at his yesterday and he was already texting her to arrange dinner by the time she arrived at work. To her it feels almost clingy but she knows that Lily would tell her that it's just normal couple behaviour. And that makes her groan in frustration because 'normal couple behaviour' has never been a part of her repertoire.

"I was thinking," Matt says, "that there's this thing at work next Friday. Sort of a mixer with the senior partners and us lower ranks. We're supposed to bring someone along with us and I thought you might want to come. It should be fun, lots of champagne. And it'd give me a chance to introduce you to my colleagues."

The idea of a work function makes her panic because, really, he thinks they're there yet? But his smile is so eager that she finds herself saying yes without even thinking about it properly. She'll end it soon. But what's the harm in letting their relationship play out for another week or two? Soon he'll simply be another guy she used to date, just like every other guy who has been in her life.

* * *

_18:00 – New York, USA._

The late summer heat has given way to torrential rain, and the streets are filled with those battling for cabs or trying to get to the subway before being soaked to the skin. The moment a cab is vacated by its passenger, it's eagerly grabbed by someone desperate to escape the rain. Lily finds herself grabbing the taxi door to stop herself falling to the ground as some overweight businessman pushes aside as she gets out.

"Hey!" she yells but if he hears her he doesn't show it. The door slams in her face and she barely has time to leap onto the sidewalk before it's pulling away.

She fumbles with her umbrella, swearing at the fiddly catch that drove her insane all of last fall. She had sworn to herself that she would buy a new one before the next rainy season but Marvin's birth had pushed all thoughts of such things out of her mind. Settling for holding her coat over her head, she speedily walks up the block in the direction of one of the apartment buildings that is so far out of her price range that it's a little ridiculous.

The doorman greets her with an apprehensive glance, taking in her soaked shirt and elasticated jeans – she's sworn that she's throwing them out the moment she's lost the baby weight – but he obviously recognises her because, after a moment, he opens the door and steps aside. The lobby is large and imposing, and the marble floor reeks of the wealth that is required to even be considered for residency. Unlike the worn stairs at their apartment, the elevator with its gilded mirrors and plush carpets make Lily feel horribly out of place. The only other passenger, a large woman whose fur coat probably costs more than Lily makes in a year, gives her a withering glance. But Lily isn't one to be made to feel small so she returns with one of her own, purposefully glaring at the yappy dog jumping around the woman's feet.

The elevator ride is slow, or maybe it just seems that way because of what is waiting for her at the other end. It stops twice and each time Lily finds herself contemplating turning and going back down. Maybe Marshall is right. Her meddling has never been appreciated before and why should this time be any different? Perhaps this is one of those times where she is supposed to be stepping back and letting things play out without interference.

But before she can make a decision, the elevator comes to a stop on a familiar dark corridor.

Her hand hovers only inches from the apartment door as every possible scenario runs through her head. What if Quinn is inside? How is she going to explain her presence then? Her temptation to turn and leave once again is strong. But then she remembers the words that were written in that letter and she thinks of Robin. And she knocks on the door.

It only takes a few seconds for there to be movement from within the apartment and she listens to the sounds of footsteps getting closer and someone fiddling with the catch. She tries to come up with something to say if it is Quinn's face that greets her, perhaps a last minute good luck for tomorrow, but she's reassured when the door open and Barney is the one standing in front of her.

"Hey, Lily. What brings you up this way? If you're looking for Quinn then she's already left for the hotel."

"No, it's you I'm here to see. I…" She trails off. This is her last chance to back out. Once the words are out there, they are out there forever. There's no taking them back. But maybe that's a good thing. The responsibility of what to do will shift from her to Barney, and at least he will be making his decision completely aware of all the facts. "I need to give you something."

"Is your present so awesome that you couldn't wait until tomorrow to give it to me? Did you get me that laser tag equipment?" he asks, his face lighting up at the idea of the one item on the wedding registry that had been his choice and his choice alone.

"No. It's…I can't really explain what it is."

He looks at her in confusion and she settles for reaching into her bag and retrieving the worn page of yellow paper that she's been carting around for the past month. She presses it into his hand and he frowns at her.

"I know you have a baby at home and everything, Lil, but this is going a little cheapskate on the present. It's not a homemade card, is it?" His lip curls in disgust at the idea.

"It's not a present. It's…" The words to explain what it is will not come to her. "I found it at Robin's a few weeks ago and I think you should read it. I'm not meddling or trying to push you towards anything. But getting married is a big decision, especially for you, and I don't think you should be making that decision without all the information."

"What…"

"Just read it, Barney. And whatever you decide to do, we'll support you one hundred percent. I promise you that. It's just that I love the both of you so much and I wouldn't feel right letting you get married tomorrow without having seen this."

His expression is more serious now as he stares down at the folded piece of paper in his hand.

"Lily, what is going on?"

"You'll understand once you've read what's on there. Please don't be mad at me if you read it and you don't care about what it says. I just needed you to know before it was too late."

There's nothing else for her to say without telling him what's in the letter, and she knows that her words would never manage to match the rawness of the words Robin wrote in a moment of openness. She settles for clutching his hands in her own and pressing a kiss to his cheek. And then she turns and walks back down the hallway, leaving Barney stood in his doorway holding the letter that could change his future forever.

* * *

_23:00 – London, England._

The streets are almost deserted as they walk back from the restaurant. There are a few other couples similarly enjoying the late night summer heat but otherwise they are alone. The conversation is being heavily carried by Matt and he barely seems to notice how quiet Robin is being. He's talking about his family and the big holidays they used to go on or something but it's all a blur to her. She nods along in what she thinks are the right places and is thankful that he seems to be happy doing all the talking. She knows that he deserves more than her minimal attention but she can't find the energy within her to be the doting girlfriend.

Her attempts to skip out after dinner had failed as he had eagerly dragged her to see some abstract theatre performance in Regent's Park. And then he had had to be the chivalrous gentleman and walk her home. All she wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep for the next twenty-four hours but her bed has never seemed so far away. The idea of inviting Matt back to hers and spending the entirety of Saturday together passes through her mind but her inability to even give him her full attention for one dinner tells her that that would be a bad idea. What she needs is to be alone and to be sad for one day. It's not something that Rebecca would approve of but it's not Rebecca who's facing the crappiness that is going to be tomorrow.

"Robin?" Matt says, startling out of her thoughts.

She forces herself to focus back on the conversation at hand and asks, "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I was asking whether you wanted to grab lunch tomorrow. My friend's doing an art show in the afternoon and I thought you might want to go."

His face is eager and she purposefully looks away in frustration as she shakes her head and snaps, "We don't have to see each other every day."

His grip on her hand loosens and it's enough to let her know that he's hurt. Taking a breath, she gives him an apologetic smile. It's not his fault that she's in such a bad mood and she knows that it's wrong of her to take it out on him. He's a great guy and he deserves better than her at her most irritable and sad.

"I'm sorry. I'm not myself at the moment and I don't mean to snap."

The concern in his tone as he asks, "Is everything alright?" makes her smile because it feels so good to know that somebody cares. Lily has been distant during their conversations over the past couple of weeks and Robin has never been able to find a way to put her problems into words before Lily has to go. Meanwhile Rebecca has been swamped at work and seems to think that their pep talk last month and Robin's dates with Matt mean that she is okay now. And it's not that she hasn't been better; she really has been. However, as September 1st zooms closer, it's hard to fight back the mass of feelings that she's spent the past couple of months pushing down.

"I will be. It's a bad time for me right now and I'm not good to be around. I know I haven't been much fun tonight and I'm sorry for that. I just need the weekend and then I'll be fine. Could we maybe try this again next week sometime when I'm in a better mood? We could check out that sushi place you keep talking about."

The smile on her face is genuine and she leans into his embrace as he wraps his arm around her waist. She feels an eagerness to make them work that she's never felt before. Maybe she can manage it. Once tomorrow is out of the way it'll be like a fresh start. And perhaps the spark that's been lacking will emerge when she's no longer weighed down by the depressing thought of the date that has been creeping closer and closer.

She kisses him goodbye and stands on the steps of her building, watching him walk towards the nearest tube station. Yes, once tomorrow is out of the way, she's going to really try with Matt. And who knows, maybe that spark will appear and she'll finally feel something for a guy who's ready to love her back.

* * *

_20:00 – New York, USA._

The letter lies on the coffee table but it's not as if Barney needs to look at it to know what it says. At some point over the past two hours, the words have become ingrained on his brain. They swirl around in his head, a constant drone that he can't seem to drown out. The words won't leave him alone. Whenever he tries to think about something else his mind just comes back to that letter.

He picks it up off the table and stares at the words, as if pure force of will will cause them to change into something else. But the same familiar words are written on the page in the same familiar handwriting.

The irony of the situation is clear to him. He spent years hoping that Robin would feel this way towards him but she never did. And now that she finally does, he's about to marry someone else. His derisive laugh echoes through the empty apartment. Someone has to be having a laugh up there at his expense. Of course he's given the one thing he always wanted when he doesn't even want it anymore.

'Is that really true?' a voice in his head asks and he drops his head into his hands. It would be a lie to say that he doesn't still have feelings for Robin. He's not sure he'll ever not love her. She was the first woman he had ever allowed himself to truly feel something for since Shannon. And hell, he's risked everything for her time and time again. He almost lost Ted, the guy who's basically a brother to him, because of her, and he threw Nora away in the hope that Robin finally felt the same towards him as he did towards her. He can't deny that she's always going to be important to him.

But now there's Quinn. He loves her. He wants to be with her. And the idea of marrying her tomorrow doesn't feel scary at all. She's the perfect girl for him and he's damn lucky to have found her. Hell, she's pretty much the female version of him and what could be more right for him than that? She makes him happy and doesn't expect him to be some better version of himself. There's never been a time when he hasn't felt good enough for her. That's not something he feels with Robin. He's not sure he's ever felt good enough for Robin.

The letter crumples in his hand as he clenches his fist because he can't help but feel angry at Robin for doing this. Of course she would do this. Not only has she kept her feelings buried for all this time but she couldn't even do the decent thing and tell him in person. Instead, she wrote a letter and ran off to the other side of the world. And he's supposed to just deal with the fact that she's been feeling all of this without ever giving him a sign. It's not fair. He put it all on the line for her less than a year ago and she took his heart and stomped on it. He wanted a real relationship with her and she made it clear that he wasn't good enough. And now that he's finally happy with someone else, she's suddenly ready for everything he wanted a year ago. Their inability to get their timing right is ridiculous.

But he remembers what Lily said, that she had found the letter at Robin's, and he knows that she never intended for him to see it. Whatever she feels towards him, she made the decision that he shouldn't know. And the fact that she put his happiness above her own makes him wish that she was here right now so he could talk to her. He wants to talk to her about the fact that she wishes she hadn't turned him down last year. And he wants to talk to her about the fact that she was unable to stay and see him marry Quinn. His attention is drawn to one line, 'I love you too much to watch you sit here and marry someone else,' and he can't help but smile. That's the first time she's ever said those three little words to him and he hadn't even realised how much he wanted to hear them until right now.

However, the reality is that she isn't here. She's in London because she can't stand to see him with someone else. And while the crueller part of him relishes the fact that she can now understand how much pain he was in in November, he hates that she felt like her only solution was to run. He's never wanted to hurt her. And maybe if things were different then now would be the time that everything would fall into place. If she was in New York and he wasn't about to marry Quinn then perhaps things could work out this time. But he's no longer in a place where he'll go running when she signals that she wants him back.

This time tomorrow he's going to be Quinn's husband. That's a future he never imagined for himself even a few months ago. But the truth is that the thought of it makes him happy. He will be happy with Quinn. And maybe it's not where he thought he would end up but it feels right. Quinn never makes him feel like he constantly has to prove himself or be worthy. He feels like he's good enough for her. With Robin he's always reaching for some unattainable standard. And he's sick of it. It's like Robin said in her letter, 'Isn't it better when someone doesn't think you're a fucked up mess?' Quinn doesn't know about all the horrible things he's done or his daddy issues or the way he changed himself completely after Shannon. Quinn is a fresh start and that's exactly what he needs.

His future is with Quinn and he doesn't want to change that.

* * *

_01:00 – London, England._

The only noises in the apartment are the soft snores coming from Rebecca's room and the steady drip of the kitchen tap. Robin quietly pads out of her room, careful to avoid the creaky floorboards at the entrance to the lounge, and fingers the cigarette packet in her pyjama pocket. There's a lighter on the coffee table and she grabs it before curling up on the large windowsill seat. The sounds of traffic from the city below fill the room as she opens the window. A chill fills the room and she drags the heavy throw off the couch. Wrapping it around her shoulders, she leans back and lights a cigarette.

The tendrils of smoke disappear into the night air and there's something soothing about watching them go. It's far more relaxing than the hour she wasted tossing and turning in bed as sleep eluded her. It's already clear that her plan to sleep Saturday away is never going to happen. She's spent the whole day feeling irritable and annoyed, and it's only gotten worse as the hours have passed. Now it's officially September 1st and she's never felt worse.

The fact that the prospect of the wedding is bothering her so much drives her mad. She hates herself for it. She wishes that she could be strong enough to not let it get to her; she wants to be strong enough to not let it get to her. She's always prided herself on not being like those women who are horribly dependent on a man. And yet here she is unable to sleep because of Barney.

She watches the lights of a plane travelling across the sky as her mind taunts her with reminders that she is the reason that she is in this situation. The cigarette does little to help relax her as memories from November and the months afterwards run on a loop through her mind. It burns to a stub before she feels even remotely calm and she flicks the end out of the window, watching the bright orange spark fall towards the ground.

Shutting the window, she presses her forehead against the cool window pane and watches the few lone figures on the street below. She feels like she's been living in a trance over the past few days. The positive attitude that followed her conversation with Rebecca after the wedding invitation had arrived has faded, while the old depressed feelings that haunted her first two weeks in London have slowly crept back in. She hates herself for being so affected by it all but perhaps this is what she needs. Today is the day that Barney Stinson becomes a married man. After today their story will finally have its ending. All the ups and downs of the relationship will culminate in nothing more than his wedding to someone else while she is thousands of miles away. Their relationship had always been filled with such energy and she had never expected it to end with such a whimper. But that's what it is. All their potential and passion fizzling out until nothing is left but a collection of regrets and unsaid words.

She sighs and shuffles off the windowsill. Rebecca's sleeping pills are stashed at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards and Robin filches three. Perhaps she'll be lucky and sleep for the next twenty-four hours. And when she wakes up, her and Barney will be done forever.

* * *

_07:00 – New York, USA._

Marvin's laughter fills the apartment as Marshall bounces him up and down. It's been almost a month since he laughed for the first time but Marshall still can't get enough of it. Every morning involves him pulling silly faces or tossing him into the air in the hope of garnering the high-pitched squeal from his son.

"He's going to be sick in a minute," Lily says with a wry smile as she emerges from the bedroom. She leans against the doorframe and watches her husband and son playing together. "And I'm not going to be the one cleaning it up."

Marshall tosses him up into the air and says, "He'll be fine," as he catches him once more. His face breaks into a broad grin as Marvin squeals delightedly. "He loves it."

"You're just a big kid, aren't you?"

"Absolutely," he laughs. "And if he throws up then I'll jump in the shower. We've got ages before we have to leave for the wedding anyway." Lily murmurs quietly in response and occupies herself with rifling through Marvin's nappy bag. "Lily?"

"Yeah, ages. Do you want some breakfast? I've suddenly got a massive craving for bacon. I thought cravings stopped after the baby was born but obviously not. Maybe it's one of those things that carries over. Do we even have any bacon? That's what I hated when I was pregnant, craving something that we didn't even have. And I guess I can't convince you to run to the store for me anymore." She trails off when Marshall stops tossing Marvin around and stares at her.

"Lily, what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. What makes you think I did something?"

"Um because you're rambling and you can't even look me in the eye." He steps towards her and she shifts her gaze away. "Lily. What. Did. You. Do?"

"I may have given the Barney the letter," she mumbles.

"You did what?"

"It's not a big deal. I thought about it and decided that you were wrong. He needed to know and so I gave him the letter," she says slowly.

"Lily! I thought we agreed that you were going to leave it."

"No, I never agreed to anything. You said I shouldn't interfere but I never said I wouldn't. Robin is my friend and I did what I thought was best. And he has the letter now so it's done."

She shrugs at her husband and takes Marvin from his arms who grabs at her hair. Pressing a kiss to his cheek, she carries him into the kitchen with Marshall not following far behind. He rests against the counter and looks at his wife.

"What do you think you're going to have achieved, Lily?"

"I don't know. But I'm glad I did it. If Barney gets married today then at least I know he made that decision with the knowledge of how Robin feels about him."

"If? You haven't changed anything. He's going to marry Quinn."

"You can't know that for certain."

"Okay, let's make a bet." He rips off a sheet of kitchen towel and writes, 'Marshall bets Lily that Barney will marry Quinn.' "You are going to look like an idiot this afternoon when Barney is stood in front of everyone professing his love for Quinn. And you'll also owe me $50 and sex in the bathroom."

* * *

_12:00 – London, England._

Rebecca emerges from her bedroom to find Robin scrubbing at the hob like her life depends on it. The counter is sparkling and the cupboards are all open, displaying the neatly organised shelves within. All the unwashed plates from last night have vanished leaving an empty sink in their place.

"What are you doing?" she asks blearily, stumbling towards the coffee machine.

Robin doesn't turn her head as she says, "Cleaning."

"Any particular reason you've suddenly become the cleaning fairy this morning?"

"Nope."

She sips her coffee and asks, "So it's got nothing to do with a certain wedding that's happening today?"

Robin's shoulders tense and she stops cleaning but keeps her face turned away from Rebecca.

"No." Her answer is terse making it clear that she doesn't want to talk about it. She tosses the cloth down and walks away. "I'm done anyway."

"Robin," Rebecca starts but Robin keeps walking. Whatever else she was going to say is lost as she firmly shuts her bedroom door behind her.

Robin drops onto her bed and shuts her eyes. The sound of a train passing by fills her room but she doesn't move. Two hours of obsessive cleaning should be enough to tire her out so she lies still and waits. The minutes slowly pass but her mind remains as busy as ever. Her mind has been buzzing since she woke up and the cleaning had been enough to keep her occupied for a little while. But now the silence is allowing her mind to run wild once more.

She opens her eyes and stares up at the ceiling. Her phone beeps from her bedside table and she reaches for it. She doesn't know if she is disappointed or not that it's only Katie asking for ideas on their dad's birthday present. She texts her something about scotch before returning to staring at the ceiling. Time feels like it's creeping by and it's as if she won't be able to breathe properly until seven o'clock has been and gone. Once that is done it'll be like a weight has been lifted from her shoulders. But until then all she can do is count down the minutes while time slowly passes by.

The time difference means that Barney and her friends must all be waking up and preparing for the wedding by now. However painful the idea of today's events are, she can't help but miss them all. Barney must be crazily nervous. She knows what a big deal this is for him. And before she knows what she's doing, her phone is back in her hand. The list of contacts blur as she scrolls up to 'B.' Though she knows Barney's number off by heart she still stops and stares at the familiar phone number. They haven't spoken since the night before she left and she can't deny that she misses him. He has always been such a key part of her life and they barely ever went a day without talking when she was in New York. It's been a strange adjustment to not seeing him or speaking to him. There will be times when something will happen at work and her first instinct is to call him and share it. Then she remembers that they don't have that sort of relationship anymore.

Her finger is hitting the call button before she can decide whether it's a good idea or not. Maybe it's time for them to start talking again and now is as good a time as any. Today may be hard on her but Barney is her friend and the least she can do is wish him good luck. The one thing that has never been a lie is her need for him to be happy. And if he's happy to be marrying Quinn then she can do what a good friend would do and tell him congratulations.

The phone rings, leaving her pondering what to say. What do you say to someone who you haven't spoken to in two months? She takes a deep breath as the ringing continues. But then the voicemail clicks on and his familiar deep voice echoes in her ear. Robin allows the message to play through until the very last second before she hangs up.

The phone slips from her hand and suddenly the room feels too small. It's as if she can barely breathe. Grabbing her iPod off the bedside table, she pulls on her trainers and tugs her hair up into a ponytail.

"Are you going out?" Rebecca asks as she emerges from her bedroom. Robin stuffs her keys and wallet into her gilet, only answering with a small nod. "I could come with you."

"I just need some space right now."

That's all the information she offers and she doesn't wait to see what Rebecca says. Instead, she walks out of the flat and jogs down the stairs. And as she gets out into the sunshine, she starts to run. She's honestly not sure when she's going to stop.

* * *

_11:00 – New York, USA._

"Can you zip me up?" Lily asks, turning around so Marshall can reach the back of her dress.

He smiles as she spins around and tells her, "You look gorgeous."

"And you look very sharp too." She smiles and straightens his tie and brushes down his shoulders. "Not too bad for two people whose main company has been a baby for the past few months."

Marshall leans down and kisses her lightly and slips his arms around her waist. While their time together is normally interrupted by Marvin demanding attention, their son is quiet in his cot. However, of course they're not lucky enough to get some time alone. There's a knock on the door that forces them apart.

"I've never said this before but I honestly cannot wait for your mother's next visit," Lily says as she goes to open the door. "All I want is one night without interruptions. I need it bad."

"Keep it in your pants, Lily."

Her retort is lost by Ted's grunt of frustration when Lily opens the door. He's carrying a large present which obviously weighs a lot judging from the beads of sweat on his forehead.

"What on earth have you got in there?" Marshall asks as he steps forward to help carry it in.

"It's that espresso machine from their registry. I had to lug it from mine to Barney's and then all the way over here."

"Weren't you meant to be riding with Barney?"

"Yes. But I couldn't get a cab this morning and he'd already left for the hotel by the time I got to his place. We should have all spent the night at hotel instead. It would have been far easier."

"We all agreed there was no point though," Lily says, walking out of the nursery with Marvin on her hip. "The out-of-town guests are there for obvious reasons, same with Quinn. But it's only an hour's ride for us. Which I'm guessing you now want to do with us?"

"Yes please. Barney hired a town car to take him to the hotel and you're the only other people I know who've a rented a car for today."

She passes Marvin over to Ted and says, "You're really not doing very well on your best man duties, Ted."

"Well at least he's not the one who tried to talk Barney out of his wedding the night before," Marshall retorts.

"I didn't try and talk him out of it!"

Ted stops bouncing his godson in the air and looks over, "Wait, what did you do?"

Lily sighs and begins to explain the story of the letter and her decision to give it to Barney, only stopping to glare at Marshall when he interjects with his opinion on why she was wrong. When she's finished, Ted shakes his head and groans.

"Seriously, what is it with those two? They never feel the same thing at the same time. It's ridiculous. It's like they aim to have bad timing."

"That's why I gave him the letter! Maybe this is the time that they get it right."

"I don't think so. I talked to Barney a few months ago, back when I thought Robin and I might get back together, and he had no problem with the idea of us being a thing again. I think he's really done with her this time. I have to side with Marshall. He wants to marry Quinn. That letter isn't going to change that."

"Maybe it won't. But at least he's choosing to marry Quinn knowing how Robin feels. I couldn't let him get married with no idea how she felt. That's not fair to either of them."

"I get that. It's not going to make him change his mind but at least he's getting married knowing that Quinn is absolutely and definitely the person he wants to spend his life with. And isn't that all any of us want on our wedding day?"

* * *

_16:00 – London, England._

Robin is lost. The shops and streets that surround her are all unfamiliar as are the people. She's passed tube stations that could get her back home but there's something she likes about having no idea where she is. She ran for the first hour when she left the flat and then settled for walking. She's walked with no idea where she is going and has ended up in an unknown part of London. The walking has been good for her, offering her the right balance between distraction and peace. Time has moved so much faster as she's explored London on foot. Though there's been a constant clock in her head converting London time into New York time, it no longer feels as if each second is lasting a minute.

She paces the streets, passing from one unfamiliar road to the next. Her thoughts on what is happening on the other side of the world do not feel as painful as they did this morning. If the five stages of grief can be applied to a relationship then perhaps this is acceptance. Barney and her are over for good. He's hours away from being Quinn's husband and she feels strangely accepting of that fact. Maybe it's the finality of it all that has brought her acceptance on. It doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt to think of him being married to someone else but today is the day that she has to accept it once and for all. It's no longer some abstract idea always hovering in the far-flung future. Instead, it will be the state of the world in only three hours' time.

The words that she never had the courage to tell Barney plague her mind as she crosses the road and walks under the arch that marks the entrance to a park. Robin has never been the sort of person to back down from a fight and yet her courage always seems to fail her when it comes to relationships. When Ted had met Victoria, she had encouraged him to chase after her rather than telling him how she felt. And then she had settled for more encouragement and snide comments. Even when she had finally been bold enough to say how she felt, it had blown up in her face with Ted's lies and her own embarrassment when Victoria revealed the truth. She had fallen back into a pattern of never finding the courage to say how she felt, forcing both Ted and Barney to make the first move time and time again. And it had always been okay for her courage to fail her because the guy had always made the leap in the end. Except this time her courage failed her and it's too late. She forced Barney to leap one time too many and now she's waiting for someone to be courageous when they're off taking a gamble on somebody else.

The path surrounds a lake and Robin begins to jog as the thoughts she likes to avoid start to push forward in her head. She can accept that Barney is about to get married but god knows that she still hates it. However hard she wants to, her mind won't let her forget that she had the chance to make it all different. If she had found her courage in November and been willing to take the gamble that Barney wanted her to then none of this would have happened. But her permanent fear of real relationships left her too scared and she threw her chance away.

And though she can begin to come to terms with Barney being married, she can't even begin to process what life is going to be like next time she goes back to New York. The concept of Barney being a married man isn't the same thing as having to be there and see it with her own eyes. Ted mentions her coming home for Christmas every time he calls and her boss has already said it will be fine. Yet she can't even imagine sitting in MacLaren's and having to see the married couple in their newlywed bubble.

She stops suddenly as she feels a tear slipping down her cheek quickly followed by another one. This may be hard but she's not about to have a break down in the middle of the damn park. Taking a deep breath, she scrubs at her face and wills herself to stop crying. And then she starts running again.

* * *

_14:00 – New York, USA._

Lily rocks Marvin on her hip, gently rubbing at his leg. His cries are only getting louder and more insistent, and she can see some of the guests glaring over at her. She does her best to glare back while simultaneously shushing her son. She holds her phone in her other hand and lets out a frustrated groan as it clicks onto voicemail.

"Why doesn't anyone ever answer their phone?" she grumbles to Marvin whose only response is to cry even harder.

* * *

_19:00 – London, England. _

The floor is showered with droplets of water as Robin shakes her head like a wet dog. At some point between getting on the tube and getting off the heavens decided to open. The five minute walk from the tube station to her front door has left her soaked to the skin and freezing.

"Rebecca?" she calls out, kicking off her trainers, but there's no answer. She tries again but is met with silence once more.

As she shrugs off her jacket, she spots the note pinned to the hall noticeboard letting her know that Rebecca has gone out and won't be back until late. Sighing in relief, her wet t-shirt and leggings are soon discarded onto the floor. The bathroom, another victim of her obsessive cleaning spree this morning, offers her the prospect of a hot shower. As the water heats up, she plugs her iPod into the dock in the living room and turns the volume up as loud as it will go. Then she pulls off her underwear and disappears into the stream of scalding hot water. It burns at her skin but the painful sensation combined with the loud music is almost enough to distract her from the ceremony that will be starting right now back in New York.

By the time she finally emerges, her skin is red and her iPod has allowed her to belt out a variety of ballads at the top of her lungs. Nearly half an hour has passed and it hits her that Barney and Quinn must be married by now. She almost expects the world to feel different from how it was when she got in the shower but everything is exactly the same. Though of course it's not because Barney Stinson is now officially married to somebody that isn't her.

Tomorrow, tomorrow she will be strong. Tomorrow will be a day where she doesn't feel sad over Barney. She's going to get up and get on with her life. She'll go to work and go to dinner with Matt. She'll start her life anew with no more regrets clouding her thoughts.

Tonight, however, is the one night that she is allowed to be sad. While the man she loves dances with his new bride, she is going to drink scotch and eat disgustingly unhealthy Chinese food. Pulling on her dressing gown, she grabs the living room phone and dials the Chinese takeaway place. The list of dishes is made up of ones that are all horribly bad for you but she orders an obscene amount of them and laughs when the guy asks how many sets of chopsticks she'll need.

She roots out her favourite pair of pyjamas, a worn blue fleecy pair that is decorated with sheep. They remind her of the ones she used to wear as a little kid and they're only pulled out when she's in need of pure comfort. Settling down on her bed, she brushes through her damp hair and scrapes it up into a sloppy ponytail. Her iPod is still playing and she hums along to it, trying to distract her mind from thoughts of New York. Yet she finds herself plagued with imaginings of them being announced as husband and wife, walking down the aisle together, and later taking to the floor for their first dance.

Thankfully her organisation of the kitchen means that forgotten bottles of alcohol have been re-discovered and she pours herself a large glass of scotch. There's a re-run of an old Friends episode on and she curls up on the couch with only her scotch for company. However, a couple of minutes after getting comfortable, there's the distinct sound of her phone buzzing from the bedroom. She knows that it's most likely Lily calling, eager to share updates from the wedding, and it's tempting to ignore the call. But she forces herself to head back to her room and grab the phone.

She forces on her brightest smile and says, "Hey, Lily," with the cheeriest tone she can manage. "How's the wedding?" Lily says something but it's lost over the sound of her flat's buzzer going off. "Hold on, my takeout just arrived. One second." She pads back into the living room and buzzes the delivery guy in with a, 'come on up.' "How is it all over there? I'm not quite sure what a Barney Stinson wedding would be like."

"Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for half an hour."

"I've been out all day and I got in the shower the moment I got back. I must have you missed your call. What's the big emergency?" The delivery guy knocks on her door and she grabs her wallet off the coffee table, resting the phone between her shoulder and ear. "Did one of Barney's crazy one-night stands crash the wedding? And if that did happen, please tell me there's video."

"There was no wedding. Barney didn't show up."

Robin's response catches in her throat as she opens the door because it's not the Chinese food delivery guy bearing noodles and spring rolls. Instead, the sight that greets her is Barney Stinson standing outside her front door looking like there's nothing unexpected about this situation at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **I want to say a crazily massive thank you for all the reviews I got for the last chapter. I have never had that many reviews for a chapter of this story before! It makes me stupidly happy to see a new email in my inbox alerting me to a review. I'm sorry that I haven't had time to thank you all individually –I've had work and have been celebrating getting a 2:1 degree – but just know that I have loved reading every single review I have gotten.

I went into this chapter planning for it to be the last one. However, I got to the point where this chapter now ends and felt like it was a natural stopping point. What that means is – SPOILER – this chapter does not feature Barney and Robin talking about a lot of their major issues. But please don't think that I've forgotten about Robin's infertility or the disaster that was their relationship in S5. All of that is coming in the next and final chapter. So, if there is any particular thing you would like to see the pair of them discuss, feel free to let me know in a review.

Finally, this chapter does push the M boundary. It's not enough for me to feel like a rating change is warranted but I thought I'd let you know because it's the polite thing to do.

And now on with the penultimate chapter.

* * *

_"Love is never wanting to lose faith, never wanting to give up, and never truly moving on. Love is knowing and praying in the deepest part of what's left of your heart that they feel the same." -Courtney Jo Wright_

* * *

Robin's nervousness is betrayed by her leg bouncing as she desperately tries to process what is happening. The sight of Barney Stinson sitting on the faded sofa in her too small living room does not compute. Her London life has been entirely separate from her New York life for the past two months, and suddenly one of the largest parts of the latter is intruding into the former. She's spent the whole day adjusting to the fact that he's about to become a married man and now here he is in her apartment with no real explanation as to why.

She had been too stunned at the sight of him standing outside her door to even speak for a good few minutes. He had said hello and she had stared at him, mouth hanging open. Lily's shouts down the other end of the phone as to whether that was Barney she had heard had barely registered in her brain. She had only been jolted back to reality when Barney had taken the phone from her, telling Lily that she would call her back. And that was what had led to them sitting together in the lounge in awkward silence.

Taking a breath, she asks, "What are you even doing here?"

"I needed to talk to you," he says, twisting around on the sofa so he's looking right at her.

"Okay. Well that's all well and good but I do feel the need to point out the obvious – you're supposed to be at a wedding right now. Your wedding actually."

"Yeah, there was a change of plans." He grins at her but it slips from his face as he notices that she doesn't look anywhere near as amused. "It's kind of complicated."

"It can't be that complicated. You're supposed to be married to Quinn right now and instead you're here at my apartment without any form of warning. What the hell is going on?"

Rather than answering, he reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. He hands it over to her with the same expression that only tends to grace his face when he's taken the decision to not hide behind all of his bravado for once. She takes the paper and opens it. As she reads what's written on the page, her heart begins to sink. Bile rises in her throat and she wishes with all her might that the sofa will suddenly swallow her whole. The horrifically familiar words cause memories from that final night in New York to flood her brain, and she honestly thinks she might throw up.

"Where did you get this?" she asks, her voice quiet and her gaze firmly locked on the piece of paper.

"Lily gave it to me."

Her head flies up in shock. "What?"

"She found it at yours or something and she gave it to me last night."

"Why would she…? I…"

Words fail her and she returns to staring at the letter.

"I think she thought it was what you would have wanted her to do. She wasn't trying to make trouble or anything. It was that she wanted me to know how you feel."

"I never meant for you to see this! If I had known that there was any chance of it ending up in your hands then I would have burnt the damn thing!"

"Why? Why is it so horrible that I read this?"

She doesn't answer him; she can't. Even though she has struggled to accept the fact that Barney is going to marry someone else, she has never truly entertained the idea of telling him how she feels.

"I didn't want you to know about any of this. You were happy with Quinn and I didn't want to meddle with that. So I stepped back and let you get on with your life. I was trying to be selfless," she says with a laugh.

"It's not you being selfless, Robin. It's the exact opposite. This is the most selfish thing you could have done."

"Selfish? How is it selfish?"

"It's selfish because it's you making a decision for me that you had no right to make. Didn't you think I deserved to know how you feel so I could decide for myself what I wanted to do with my life? You took my freedom to choose who I wanted to be with away from me by pretending you didn't feel anything towards me at all."

"I wasn't pretending! I didn't want to feel this way towards you."

"There's a difference between not wanting to feel something and not actually feeling it! God knows I know that that's true! I didn't want to love you. Loving you has given me nothing but trouble over the past few years. My life was so much easier when I didn't want anything more than spending a night picking up girls at the bar."

"Well I didn't ask you to fall in love with me and give up your way of life. And obviously you didn't love me that much if you could move on to Quinn so quickly. You were together for less than three months before you were asking her to marry you. We couldn't even make it past the odd fight! You moved Quinn into your apartment and gave her this extravagant proposal, but you couldn't ever do something like that for me."

"Robin, I didn't think you wanted any of that stuff. And you're just as terrified of commitment as I am."

"That's not my point. You couldn't even give up something as simple as going to strip clubs when I asked you to. And obviously you're not that terrified of it when it's Quinn."

"And neither are you when it's with someone like Kevin!"

The room is tense as the two stare at each other. They've moved from sitting on the sofa to standing. Barney's suit jacket is discarded on the sofa and Robin can feel her heart racing. They're doing what they've never done before; they're finally broaching one of the many issues that they've always quietly ignored in the name of maintaining their friendship.

"You have no idea what happened between me and Kevin," she snaps, taking a step backwards to create some space between the two of them.

"I know that you thought he was good enough for you when I wasn't. I know that you couldn't commit to giving us another chance but you were happy to get engaged to him."

"It wasn't that simple. You can't imagine what I've been going through over the past few months."

"Clearly not since you never talk to me about anything! You constantly shut me out. You talk to Lily, you talk to Ted, but you never talk to me! And when you do, I barely get anything before you push me away again. You finally show me that you felt sad over us breaking up and then you were starting a whole new life with Don. Then there was that cab ride where you told me that you had loved me and proceeded to stand by and watch me get back together with Nora. And of course we can't forget November, can we? The reason I have no idea what you've been going through is because you never tell me!"

He's shouting now, waving his arms around as he gesticulates wildly, and she can't help but do the same as she feels anger rising within her.

"And why do you think that is? It's because you don't want to listen to me! I am never the person that is most important to you." He scoffs but her fierce glare is enough to quiet him. "Don't you dare! You know that it's true. All those times that I was so cut up over us breaking up were when you were rubbing it in my face at how you had moved on. What was I supposed to do? Stand by and remain a sad mess over losing the guy that had proceeded to fuck half of the female population of New York? I moved on with Don because it was the only way I could come up with to put myself back together again. And you were the one that spent forever preaching about how new is always better and that it's a mistake to get back with an ex. You were more than happy to move on with Nora, just like you were with Quinn. So don't you dare stand in my home and yell at me like I'm the one in the wrong."

Turning away from him, she makes a move to storm into her bedroom, but Barney grabs her arm before she can get away.

"Robin, wait. I'm sorry. I don't want to fight with you. This isn't how I thought this would go."

"And what did you imagine, Barney? You haven't even told me what the hell is going. You show up here with no explanation as to what you're doing in London when you're supposed to be at your wedding reception right now."

"Right, an explanation," he says, dropping back down onto her sofa with a sigh. "I guess that would have been a better place to start rather than fighting with you."

"It might have been." She gives him a small smile and sits down next to him. She doesn't want to fight with him. But, at the same time, she doesn't dare allow herself to consider what all this might mean until she knows exactly what happened back in New York. "Just tell me what happened."

Her hopes rise as she takes in the open, loving expression on his face, a look that she can only recall seeing him give her once or twice before, and she desperately tries to quash them. The whole point of coming to London was to move on, and she refuses to have all her hard work undone by one simple look when she has no idea what it really means. For all she knows, Barney is here to let her down gently so he can marry Quinn with no guilt weighing him down. But then he gives her that smile that she's never seen him give to anyone else but her and she knows it's too late. If he is here to be a good friend and to let her know that he doesn't feel the same then she has no idea how long it will take her to build herself back up again.

"I've missed you so much these past couple of months. Even simple stuff like going to MacLaren's hasn't felt the same without you." He pauses. "But I've been happy. Quinn is amazing and I love her."

It's like a punch to the gut. She's seen their relationship for herself and she's accepted the fact that he's happy and in love with someone else. Hearing him say those words though, that's far harder to take than she could have imagined.

"I'm glad you're happy."

He gives an aggravated sigh before continuing as if she hasn't spoken. "I never imagined myself getting married before but it felt like the next step with her. It was what I wanted." His use of the past tense captures her attention and she is unable to stop another burst of hope shooting through her. "And then Lily showed up with that letter." He turns and looks at her. She's perched on the edge of the sofa, tension radiating from her body, looking quite ready to run if there's even the tiniest sign that he's about to say something that will hurt her. "I wish I could tell you that I read that letter and changed my mind instantly. But I didn't. I read it and I was convinced that I didn't feel that same. I was certain that I had moved on, and I guess it's that idea that if you tell yourself something enough times then you can believe it's true."

Robin wishes she could slap herself right now because she hates that she's allowing her hopes to rise at just a few choice words. She feels like a silly love-struck girl and she doesn't like it. So, she takes a breath and shifts away from Barney slightly. Rationality is what is required now, not hope.

"But isn't also the case that sometimes those things are simply the truth? I saw you with Quinn; you love her. And God knows that you'd never have done some extravagant airport proposal for me."

"Because you'd have hated it if I did," he laughs.

"That's true." She laughs too but it dies quickly. She can't stop her tone from becoming serious once more. "But it's also true that you've been happy these past few months. Sometimes we move on from the people that we once loved."

"Robin, I could never move on from you." The sigh that accompanies his statement is heavy. But there's something in his eyes that says he isn't as dejected at the idea as his tone makes him sound.

She can't stop herself from sitting up a little straighter and sounding a little brighter as she asks, "What?"

"After November, I was done. I found Quinn and I made myself move on. She made me smile and feel good about myself. I could see a future with her. And when I proposed to her, I honestly thought it was what I wanted."

"Clearly you did since it seems like you had every intention of marrying her up until a matter of hours ago. What is that you're doing here exactly? Because if this is your way of dealing with being terrified of getting married then I'm really not in the mood for it."

"No." He stares at her for a moment, his brow crinkling in confusion. "I thought it was obvious what I'm doing here. I went for a walk after I read your letter to try and clear my head. But however hard I tried to get excited for my wedding or to think about anything that wasn't to do with you, I couldn't. You were all I could think about. I wasn't thinking about my fiancé or my vows or our future together; I was thinking about you. I got to the middle of Central Park before it hit me that I didn't want to stop thinking about you."

"Barney, don't do this."

The words escape her lips before she even realises what she's saying, and she's standing up in a desperate attempt to create some distance between them.

"What? I'm trying to tell you that I lo-"

"No! Don't say it!" She walks away from it and busies herself with searching through the cupboards for something to eat. Her damn takeout still hasn't shown up and she needs something to distract her from the person standing in her living room saying words that she can't hear from him right now, not like this. No matter what she feels towards Barney, they're not her words to hear. He's supposed to be making declarations of love to Quinn right now, not her. "I can't hear you say those words to me when you're still engaged to someone else. There's someone out there who loves you and thinks that you love them."

"I'm not engaged to Quinn anymore!" he interrupts.

The cup of water slips from her hand and drops to the floor, the plastic cup bouncing away and leaving her feet soaked, but she doesn't even notice. "Huh?"

"Did you think that I jumped on a plane over here without even breaking up with my fiancée? As if you wouldn't kick me out without a second thought if I did that."

She walks back over to him. "You ended things with Quinn?"

"I did. I have spent years feeling towards you what you never felt towards me. Then Lily gave me this letter showing me that, finally, you feel about me how I feel about you. And I couldn't stop wondering what the hell was I doing. How could I marry Quinn after seeing this?" He waves the letter at her. "So, I went to the hotel where we're supposed to be having our wedding reception right now. I told her that I couldn't marry her because I wasn't over you. She yelled, we fought, and she got a pretty good slap in too. Then I spent the night asleep on a hard bench at JFK, waiting for them to announce the very first flight of the day to London. I did all of that because I realised that I love you and I don't want to not be with you."

"Barney, do you realise what you're saying?"

Her heart is racing and it feels like her stomach is full of butterflies. This isn't the sort of thing that happens in real life. Declarations of love and mad dashes across the world belong in Nora Ephron movies, not her life. She's never been the girl who dreams of moments that are ripped right from a romantic comedy but that doesn't mean she can stop herself from buying into this one. The man she loves, who is supposed to be married to someone else right now, is standing in her living room telling her that he loves her. And rather than wanting to run like she normally does when feelings are brought into the equation, she finds herself desperately hoping that this isn't some crazy trick or miscommunication.

"I do, I really do." She smiles at him but he doesn't reciprocate. "But this is it. I am not going through this again. I am all in. I want to do this; I want to make this thing work. You and me forever. I want you in my life every day because anything else just seems ridiculous. And I know that it's going to be hard, but I want to do this. I want you. But I don't know what else I can do. I have put it all on the line for you again and again. I just broke up with my fiancée not even twenty-four hours before our wedding and then spent the night sleeping at JFK so I could be on the first flight to London. I flew halfway around the world with nothing but the clothes on my back. And I do all of that because of one letter that I'm hoping has told me how you really feel. Because, honestly, you should be the one making some form of massive gesture, not me. I tried. That night in November, I waited at the bar for you to show up ready to be with me. I was an idiot because I thought you felt the same way I did. I fucking well scattered rose petals and lit candles in your room on some stupid romantic hope. And then you shot me down and I felt like a worthless fool. That should have been it. I was done. I moved on and I was happy with somebody else. I loved Quinn and I was ready to marry her. If anyone should have been taking a gamble and revealing how they felt then it should have been you. Did you know that I sent you that wedding invitation? I sent it in some stupid moment of madness and I didn't even realise why until I was on the plane to London. I did it because I wanted you to do something. I wanted it to push you to show me how you felt. If anything was going to make you act then surely my fucking wedding invitation would have done it. But you didn't."

"Barney," she says, reaching out for him, but he shrugs her hand off and drops down onto the sofa.

"You think you're this closed book, Robin, but I know you. You aren't the girl who flies halfway around the world and crashes a wedding all in the name of love. That's not the sort of risk you take. But this," he gestures at the letter again. "This is a massive risk for you because you don't talk about how you feel. Did you know that you never told me you loved me the entire time we were together?"

"It's not that I didn't feel it. It's just that it's not easy for me to say stuff like that."

"Exactly. You couldn't say those three little words to me. But you wrote them down here." He points to the sentence towards the end of the letter and smiles. "This is you taking a risk. You might not have crashed my wedding or even told me how you feel to my face. This letter though, this letter is you admitting how you really feel. You never once denied your feelings or tried to pass them off as something else. For one page, you were completely and utterly honest about the fact that you love me. And how could I not jump on a plane when Robin Scherbatsky reveals that she is in love with me?

She can't help but smile because he's looking at her with this look of love that makes her feel like the most important person in the world. It's silly and cliché but she doesn't care.

"You really want to be with me?" she asks tentatively. "You have to know that I'm never going to be the person that can easily tell you how I feel. I didn't even mean for you to see that letter."

"I don't care. You wouldn't be the woman I love if something as simple as getting you to say 'I love you' didn't take years."

"But I'm never going to be Quinn or Nora or…"

"I don't want Quinn or Nora or anyone else. I want you, all of you."

The look of love that graces his face is so damn powerful that she knows it's true. Suddenly, a visceral pang of desire passes through her, a surge of longing so strong that she can't help but wonder how she managed to go so long honestly believing that she didn't love Barney.

The nerves are building in her stomach as she steps closer to him, and she can feel her younger self fighting against the words that are forming on her tongue. But the reality is that being scared of her feelings hasn't gotten her anywhere. All it's done is push people away and leave her wondering whether she's ever going to find someone who wants to be with her without requiring her to become someone else.

She knows what Barney said is true. She has never been the one to find the courage to take the leap in their relationship. It has always been left to Barney to fight for them. Her role has either been to stand by and let him drag her forward or to be too scared to even take the leap in the first place. Now though, this is Barney leaping for the last time. It's bigger than him telling her how he feels on the roof at Ted's birthday or him breaking up with Nora for her. This is him bailing on an engagement in the hope that she finally loves him like he does her. This is make or break for them because she knows that he's never going to take a chance on her again if she says no now.

So, she takes a breath and says the words that she's always been too terrified to say and truly mean.

"I love you, Barney."

His face lights up as a massive smile breaks out on his face. That pang of desire shoots through her again but, before she can take the chance to act on it, his hands are on her waist and his lips are on hers. The kiss is tentative at first, as if he fears that she's going to push him away, but, when he realises she isn't, he deepens it. The desperation and longing on the part of both parties is evident as they clutch tightly at each other, each terrified that this will turn out to be some crazy dream. His arms slip around her waist, tugging her closer, as Robin tangles her fingers in his hair. Eventually they break apart with twin gasps, and Barney presses his forehead against Robin's.

"God I've missed you."

"I've definitely missed that," she says with a grin before leaning in to kiss him again. But then a thought pops into her head and she freezes with her lips mere millimetres from his. "I can't." His eyes fill with fear and she feels him tense in her arms. "No, no. It's nothing like that. I want this; I swear I do. But I don't want it to be like last time. We hurt people and that's no way to start a relationship."

"I've finished it with Quinn though."

"I know you have. But I've been seeing someone."

"You have?" Hurt flickers across his face but the look that she gives him, one telling him that he has no right to be hurt, means that it's gone in an instant. "Is it serious?"

"No, it's not. It's only been a month. He deserves me breaking up with in person before I start anything with you though. He's a good guy and I don't want to hurt him."

"Okay, I can wait. But we're really doing this though?" The smile that forms on his face when she nods is infectious and she can't stop herself from smiling back just as broadly.

"We are. Give me one hour to talk to Matt and then I'm all in. I mean, there's still stuff we need to talk about but…"

"We've got plenty of time to talk about it all. Go and see him and I'll be right here waiting for you when you get back."

She doesn't say a word and instead hugs him tightly. And he is equally silent as he hugs her back, burying his face in her hair and holding her.

* * *

The takeout bags sit on the table slowly cooling as the minutes tick away. Barney had hoped that it had been Robin at the door when he had heard the knock, that she had forgotten her keys or something, but it had only been a delivery man. And as time has slowly passed since that last interruption, he can't stop his anxiety from gradually increasing.

It is hard to fight the déjà vu that hangs over this situation as he waits for Robin to come back from seeing Matt. The last time he had been a situation like this, where he'd already risked everything, put his heart on the line and was waiting to see if Robin really had the courage to do the same, it had ended horribly. In fact he's not sure he's even been as hurt as he was when she rejected him with nothing but a shake of her head. And now, for some insane reason, he's put himself into the exact same situation again.

She had left her apartment with a promise to be back as soon as she could. She had said that she would explain everything to Matt and then be straight back. That had been almost an hour ago. He knows that that isn't too long, especially when taking into account travel time and the conversation that is going to be required. But that doesn't stop his mind taunting him with the idea that this time apart is going to be enough for her to realise that Barney isn't what she wants. For all he knows, Matt is talking to her right now and persuading her that he is the better choice. And he's not sure that he can face another rejection.

He spends his time waiting flicking through the channels for something to watch and reading Robin's prep notes for her last few interviews. There are no rose petals and candles this time. The burning embarrassment that had clung to him as he had cleared it all out of her room on that fateful night is not easy to forget. He can't face the idea of having to do it again and so he sits and quietly waits, hating the fact that his future is now out of his hands.

His nerves are pushing him to the point where he is unable to sit still when he hears a key in the lock. Robin's familiar dark head appears as the door opens but he can't bring himself to look at her. Instead, his heart is in his mouth as his gaze fixes on the spot over her shoulder. He watches and waits to see if some guy is going to walk in behind her again, a guy that she feels is a better choice than him. But the door shuts firmly behind her with no one else accompanying her. However, it's not until he sees the warm smile gracing her face that he really understands that this isn't going to be that November night all over again.

"Hey, sorry I was gone so long." He's strangely reassured by the fact that she sounds just as nervous as he is.

"Did it all go okay?"

"Yeah it did. I think he knew it was coming anyway. I haven't exactly been myself this past few days. But it wasn't particularly serious and I probably would have broken it off in a couple of weeks when I'm finished here. That is something that we should probably talk about actually." She walks towards him, shrugging off her coat and kicking off her shoes as she does so. "And then there's what happened in November, Quinn, Don. There's so much stuff we need to talk about before we do this. There are things about me you don't know; things that are kind of a deal breaker."

"I don't care, not right now. We can talk about all of that later. But I love you, and you love me, and that itself is something that needs serious celebrating."

He has run through all the things that he wants to talk to her about before they leap into this thing for real, but his urge for conversation has vanished now that she's standing in front of him again. It's been so long since he's been allowed to even look at her with anything more than the gaze of a close friend, and he can feel his desire for her overtaking the logical voice in his head demanding discussions about the past and future.

"What did you have in mind?" she asks, her voice taking on a seductive lilt that causes a wicked grin to spread across his face.

He doesn't answer because, while they're going to have so much to talk about later, all he wants to do right now is something that very actively involves not talking. His lips brush against hers and he feels his brain switch into automatic as she presses her body against him. There may have been many parts of being a couple that they were pretty rubbish at but this was never one of them. From that first slightly drunken night, sex has always been their forte.

They stumble towards her room, and he relishes the feel of her hands on his skin as she frantically tugs his shirt off. Hers is not far behind and he moves his lips to her neck, sucking hard and earning a frustrated moan from her. Their collapse onto the bed is ungraceful but neither seems to care as Robin locks her legs through his and rocks against him. He's hard already, completely desperate for her, and god knows that it's been far too long since they did this. But even with the time apart, he still remembers exactly what to do to elicit a sharp gasp from her. His fingers slip into her pants and he can't help but grin as they brush against her and she throws her head back with a moan. However, Robin has never been one to refrain from giving as good as she gets. It's satisfying to watch Barney's eyes roll back in his head as her fingers make quick work of his belt and disappear inside his boxers.

It's not long before they're both naked and her hands are tracing the familiar contours of his body. Only this morning she had thought that he was lost to her forever and now he's here in her bed. It feels too good to be true and she can't help but hold onto him tightly as if he might disappear at any second. He's holding her nearly as tightly though, and she knows that he's just as terrified that this might all slip away in a moment. She wants to say something, to reassure him, but then he's inside of her and she settles for kissing him and letting the fierceness of her kiss tell him what he needs to know. Then she starts to rock against him, working to meet his thrusts and keep pace, and she kisses his shoulder, sucking on the warm skin to leave her own mark on him.

It's fast and messy and desperate. There are grunts and moans and the rhythmic squeak of her bed. She hooks her leg around his waist and tosses her head back as they begin to move faster. There have been other men who have shared this bed with her over the past couple of months but none of them were Barney. Everything is different with him. She wants to savour the moment and make it last. But his lips are on her breasts, his thrusts are faster and harder, and her own screams are echoing in her ears as her nails scrape down his back. He follows suit only a few seconds later, burying his face in her neck and moaning her name in a way she had never thought she would hear again.

He rolls off her and they lay there, waiting for their heart rates to slow and breathing to steady. Normally she'd roll away from him, desperate for her own space, but the feel of his body pressed against hers is comforting and familiar, a sign that this isn't all some vivid dream. So, she rolls over and faces him, tangling her legs with his and shuffling even closer to him. Wrapping her arms around him tightly, she breathes him in, pressing her face into his neck so that his scent envelopes her. And as she feels herself slowly succumbing to sleep, she makes no effort to move away. Instead, she finds herself content to fall asleep with Barney's arms wrapped around her, his presence providing her with a happiness that she hasn't felt in a long time.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **I am so sorry that it's taken this long for the final chapter. I meant to write it in the final week of June but real life got in the way. And I've been on holiday in America for the entirety of July. However much I wish it did, camping out over night for the Doctor Who panel at San Diego Comic Con is not the ideal circumstance for writing fic. Therefore, writing this chapter had to wait until I was back in England. Thankfully that mass of HIMYM spoilers was released the day before I flew home so my HIMYM love was re-awakened at exactly the right time. And though swimming and rowing at the Olympics did distract me, it's finally here. I really hope that it's worth the wait for you guys.

I want to say thank you once more to everyone who has read, reviewed, alerted, and favourited this story over the past few months. This is the first multi-chapter fic that I've written and finished in four years, and it's my first multi-chapter fic for this fandom. I don't always have time to reply to reviews but they mean the world to me, and I love knowing that people have loved reading this story as much as I have loved writing it.

And finally, this isn't the last for me on B/R fic. I've had an idea for a fic for a couple of months now but I didn't want to start it until I finished this. It's going to be a series of one-shots rather than ongoing chapters but they'll all be centred around a specific theme. Hopefully it'll be up in the next couple of days so keep an eye out for it.

I'll shut up now. Enjoy the last chapter of _for me, it isn't over._

* * *

_"Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don't exist, but there's always one guy that is perfect for you." –Bob Marley_

* * *

Robin is the first to wake up, and the reality of her situation doesn't dawn on her immediately. The blinking clock tells her that it's nearly midnight and she's not aware of what has awoken her until the loud rumble of her stomach fills the room. Breakfast had been sacrificed in the name of her cleaning spree, and lunch had consisted of nothing more than a packet of crisps from a corner shop halfway through her attempt to literally run from her problems.

Two things happen simultaneously. At the same moment that Robin remembers that she had ordered Chinese takeout just before Lily called, she hears a quiet groan behind her and an arm tightens its hold around her waist. She's alarmed for a moment until she twists slightly to glance over her shoulder and spies a familiar blond head.

And then the rest of the night comes back to her. Lily telling her that Barney didn't show up at the wedding, him showing up at her front door instead, the long talk they had had where they each admitted that they wanted to be together, her break-up with Matt which had ended with him telling her that she was making a mistake because why would her and Barney work this time, and everything that had happened after she had returned to her flat filled with the intention to have a proper talk with Barney. The memories of the events that followed her return home bring a smile to her face, and she stretches, careful not to nudge Barney.

Barney is still fast asleep next to her. Dumping your fiancée before flying halfway across the world to declare your love for the girl who broke your heart not even a year previous was probably pretty exhausting. Though the comfort of finally being in bed with him again is almost enough to keep her exactly where she is, her stomach's demand for food forces her to leave him sleeping and search out some form of sustenance.

The living room is dark, and a knock on Rebecca's door doesn't yield an answer. The flat is quiet, as if nothing momentous has happened within its walls today, and Robin embraces the silence. The events of the past few hours have been too much for her to even begin to process. This morning she had faced the reality of Barney's wedding, and now he's lying in her bed. And while she wishes that she could simply accept this change in circumstances that's beyond her wildest dreams, she can't. Because the truth is that there is still so much left unsaid between her and Barney. There are things that he doesn't know, things that have ended old relationships, and she can't allow herself to start a new relationship with him without knowing that he won't bail when he learns the truth about her. They ran from their problems when they were a couple and they did exactly the same thing in the aftermath of their break-up. They've forced their friendship to survive over the years, always ignoring the issues that needed to be dealt with. And they can't continue their avoidance tactics if they want whatever this is to work.

_This._ That's another thing they need to talk about. Barney has spent the past few months with someone else, someone he was prepared to marry, and now he's here with her. Yet, even with his flight around the world, she has no idea what he wants. Or what she wants.

However much The Talk sucks, this is one of those times that, unfortunately, it's necessary.

If there's one thing she's always been terrible at and steadfastly avoided, it's The Talk. Therefore, she braces herself for it by reheating Chinese food, drinking half a glass of scotch, and smoking a cigarette. It does little to prepare her for tackling the mass of issues that have haunted her and Barney over the years but at least the alcohol and cigarettes numb her slightly against the impending horror of what is to come.

When she can procrastinate no longer, Robin gathers up the food and scotch and makes her way back to the bedroom. The sight that greets her is Barney fast asleep in her bed. She leans against the doorframe and watches him sleep. It's probably vaguely creepy but she can't quite believe that he's actually here and this is all real. She watches as he rolls over and reaches an arm out. His hand clutches at her side of the bed, and he kicks his leg out and buries his face in her pillow when he finds it empty. His sleep is barely disturbed by this series of actions and she can't help but smile at the fact that that he seeks her out in his sleep.

It's tempting to just let him sleep but she knows that she won't be able to relax until she knows what him being here means. It's like she's waiting for the other shoe to drop because this is all just too good to be real. And until they've talked everything through, and she knows he's not going to run when she tells him certain things, then she's not going to let herself believe that this is actually happening.

"Barney," she whispers quietly, shaking him as she slides back into bed. He mumbles something but doesn't wake. "Barney."

This time she presses a kiss to his cheek as she shakes his shoulder, and he rolls closer to her, wrapping an arm around her waist. It's all painfully familiar of a time that she thought was long gone, and she almost expects to wake up in a moment with this night having been nothing more than a horribly realistic dream.

"Barney, we need to talk."

His eyes fly open as a look of panic passes over his face. His train of thought is clear. Those words are rarely followed by anything positive, and the drama that has always accompanied their relationship makes those words even more worrying. He tenses and she can see him fighting not to panic.

"Don't worry, it's not a 'this was a mistake' talk," she tells him, forcing herself to push down her own worries surrounding the conversation that's to come. "I promise that's not what this is." He relaxes slightly but the panic is still obvious on his face. "But there are things we need to talk about. This time yesterday you were getting ready to marry Quinn. Now you're here with me. And we haven't even spoken in over two months. There's so much stuff that we need to talk about and we can't make the mistake of avoiding it like we always do."

"You mean we need to have The Talk?" he asks, his voice a mix of apprehension and disgust. He shuffles slightly up the bed so he's leaning against the pillows and scrubs at his face in an attempt to wake up.

"Unfortunately we do. But I brought supplies," she says optimistically as she waves the Chinese food and scotch in front of him.

The promise of drink seems to soften his worries enough for him to get out of bed and seek out the bathroom. As he disappears from the room, she isn't sure why she is suddenly so nervous. She finds herself smoothing down the bed covers and primping her hair as if she's a teenager again. Suddenly things that hadn't even mattered before, like the two-day-old mug of coffee on the nightstand and the worn copy of the third Harry Potter that it's resting on, make her feel extremely self-conscious. Normally men in her room don't faze her – she's not exactly a newbie at this – but this is Barney, and he makes her feel things that she's never felt with anyone else. She cares about how he sees her and what he thinks of her, which is ridiculous because he knows her better than anyone else in the world. But it's been years since they were intimate like this - that night in November had been about sex and little else - and that terrifies her. Neither of them are the people they were when they last tried this dating thing, and a lot has changed for both of them since then. And however much she is loathed to admit it - she's always prided herself on never changing for any man - she cares what Barney thinks about who she has become.

The door opens and Barney shuffles back in, all sleepy eyes and bedhead. He tumbles back onto the bed without a word and drags a pillow over his face with a slight groan. His movement causes his boxers to ride slightly lower than normal and she allows herself a small moment to appreciate the sight of barely dressed Barney. In fact, it isn't until she pushes the container of spring rolls towards him that he forces himself to sit up slightly. The tiredness that has been weighing him down seems to visibly lift as he tucks into the food. As she joins him, Robin waits for him to say something to start this conversation. However, the silence merely stretches on as he keeps his gaze focused on the food in front of him. The responsibility to start tackling the issues that stand between them and a new relationship is falling to her. And the truth is that that's the way it should be. Barney has been the one to put everything on the line time and time again in the vain hope that she feels the same. She has never taken the gamble. The least she can do is apologise for certain things in the name of making this work.

"I'm sorry about November."

His response is to start violently coughing as he chokes on a piece of chicken. She pats him on the back on an effort to stop him choking but she doesn't stop talking; she can't. She knows this is jumping in at the deep end of the things they need to talk about but if she doesn't say it now then she never will. Writing it in the letter wasn't enough. It doesn't show him just how sorry she is and how much she regrets what she did that night.

"I never should have brought Kevin to the bar. That was cruel and the worst thing I could have done when you were there waiting for me. And more than that, I never should have chosen Kevin over you."

"Then why did you?" he asks in a quiet voice, steadfastly avoiding making eye contact with her.

"Because I was scared." It sounds like a bullshit excuse but it's the truth. "It's like I wrote in that letter, I was terrified of being with someone who knows what a mess I am. When I asked Kevin why he loved me, he gave me the answer I thought I'd always wanted to hear. So I took the easy way out and chose him over you."

"You couldn't have told me that though rather than just showing up at the bar with him?" The rising anger in his tone is obvious. "You made me feel like the biggest idiot on the planet!"

"There's no way for me to explain that. It was horrible of me. I guess a part of me thought you wouldn't go through with it either so showing up with Kevin would stop me from getting hurt." He snorts. "Yes, I see the irony in that. And I can't apologise enough for what I did. I felt terrible when I saw you there. I would have taken it back if I could. I never meant to hurt you. If I could do that night over again then I would have broken up with Kevin like you expected me to. It was never going to last with him."

"But you didn't, did you?"

"No I didn't. What else can I say though? Choosing Kevin was a mistake. I wish I hadn't done it. And it was cruel of me to bring Kevin to the bar and brush you off with that crappy apology in front of everyone. Please know that I feel awful about it. But I'm not going to sit here and beg you to forgive me. I feel terrible about it but what else can I do but apologise over and over again? And clearly you moved on just fine! You're acting like I broke your heart but you were engaged to Quinn six months later!"

This isn't the way she wanted the conversation to go but she can't stop herself from bringing up Quinn because that's her November. Barney can say he was heartbroken by her rejection but his own actions suggest that he wasn't as cut up about it as it seemed. She had had to stand by and see what she had given up as he acted like a more committed boyfriend to Quinn than he ever had with her.

"What was I supposed to do?" he shouts, shoving the duvet off and standing up. "Stand around and feel sorry for myself?"

"Well that's what you seem to think I should be doing!"

The two find themselves stood on opposite sides of the bed, hands on their hips and unsaid words resting on the tips of their tongues. The air of happiness that had enveloped them both over the past few hours has now faded leaving only tension behind. The problem with finally tackling something that you've steadfastly avoided talking about is that it awakens a whole other host of problems and feelings.

"I'm not going to apologise for trying to move one!"

"Trying?" She laughs bitterly. "You moved her into your place after a month! And then you proposed two months later. Obviously you were really heartbroken over me choosing Kevin. It sounds like you moved on without a problem."

"And you got engaged to Kevin. It seems like we both moved on just fine."

She opens her mouth to yell at him but stops suddenly. Standing still for a moment, she contemplates yelling but the energy to do so seems to have vanished. Instead of shouting, she sits down on the edge of the bed and sighs.

"See that's the thing," she says in a tired voice. "You have no idea what this year has been like for me because you haven't been there. I've been going through things where I really needed one of my best friends. And I know that's horribly selfish of me after I hurt you so much but I thought you'd care enough to at least try and still be there for me."

Dropping down next to her, he shakes his head. "The problem with that is that sleeping together complicated our friendship. And you assumed that our friendship would still be fine even after you hurt me like you did. You can't just pick and choose which bits of our relationship you want to keep and which you want to throw away. It's selfish."

"That's not what I was trying to do."

"Robin, you broke my heart in front of everybody and thought we could still be friends like nothing had happened. That damn well sounds like picking and choosing to me."

"Well you were definitely acting like nothing had happened," she snaps.

"You're mad at me about Quinn?"

"Why would I be mad about you getting engaged to someone else months after wanting to give it a chance with me? What possible reason could I have for being angry at you for moving in with Quinn after a month when I had to fight simply to get a drawer at your place? What do you think, Barney? Of course I'm mad!"

"I was trying to move on, Robin. In exactly the same way you did with Don. It's what we do, isn't it? We both pretend we're fine because it's easier than admitting that we're not. I'm not going to apologise for being with Quinn. I really thought I could be happy with her, and as far as I knew, you weren't remotely interested in being with me."

"So it's my fault that I had to face you being with her?"

"That's not what I'm saying. But you can't expect to apologise for moving on when you'd made it clear that we had no chance of ever being together. Every sign pointed to you not loving me so I decided to find someone who did. You have no right to be mad at me for that."

Her sigh signals that she knows that he's right. Seeing him with her had been awful. She thought seeing him with Nora had been hard but it was nothing compared to being forced to watch the ease with which he had jumped through every relationship hoop with Quinn. But she was the one that pushed Barney away all those months ago. He had every right to try and be happy with someone else, however much it hurt her to watch him do it.

Her voice is quiet as she asks, "Were you happy with her?"

"I was." He knows it's not the answer she wants to hear but he doesn't want to lie to her. "I saw myself having a future with her. But I'd be lying if I said that the way I felt about her ever compared to way I felt about you. I've never been as happy with anyone as I was with you."

She wants to stay mad at him. There's a part of her that's always going to hurt from seeing him fall in love with someone else. It's the same part of him that's always going to hurt thanks to that night in November. They each have to carry that pain, no matter what words the other says. Even with that though, she can't stop herself from smiling at what he says. It's only for a moment but it's enough to let Barney know that they're on the right path.

"Why did you get engaged then? I mean, you were prepared to marry her this time yesterday."

"Do you want the truth?" She nods. "Over the past year, I've stopped loving the way my life was. I got tired of doing nothing but hooking up with random girls. And I never thought that was something I'd say. So I tried to do the serious relationship thing. It failed with Nora, twice. You clearly weren't interested in trying it with me. But Quinn was. And I saw a future with her. I knew that I could marry her and be happy. She wasn't going to bail on me and I liked that."

However much it hurt to see him with someone else, she can see where he's coming from. There's a sudden bout of guilt as it hits her that she is at least partly to blame for how his insecurities. She left him just like Shannon and Jerry. It's no surprise that he desperately clung to someone who wasn't about to leave him when everyone else had.

"I understand." The rest of what she's thinking is harder to say. Openness and feelings have never played a huge part in their relationship. Even when they have talked about them, it's been through allusions and half-hearted attempts to say what they feel. "I think we both have a tendency to stick with what's safe. And neither of us are exactly experts at saying what we feel. I stuck with Kevin because being with him never required me to look any deeper into my feelings than I wanted to. I wasn't terrified of how I felt with him like I am with you."

"Terrified?"

There's a long pause before she quietly sighs and says, "I've never loved anyone the way I love you." He smiles at her in a way that's half cocky and half pure joy but stays quiet as if he knows how hard it is for someone like her to say something like this. "I don't need people. That's not who I am. But I realised a while ago that I need you around. I hate it and I've tried to ignore it. When you got back together with Nora, I tried to tell myself that I was fine with not being with you. That's what being with Kevin was about I guess. If I could convince myself that I had moved on then maybe I would have actually moved on. But the truth is that, however hard I try to tell myself I don't love you, there's never been anyone else that I've felt this way about."

Whatever she was going to say next is lost as Barney threads a hand through her hair and pulls her towards him. His eyes meet hers and suddenly, without a word, he is kissing her. She feels him sigh against her mouth as she kisses him back. His hands fist in her hair, tugging her closer to him, and she fights back a small groan as he bites on her bottom lip. The kiss is intense and over far too quickly for her liking.

"I'm sorry that I never thought about how Quinn and me being engaged would make you feel. I assumed you'd be alright with it," he tells her as they break apart.

"I think we've long since established that talking about our feelings is neither of our fortes. I never gave you any sign that I wasn't okay with it."

"And I didn't exactly rush to tell you how I felt after everything that happened last fall."

"I am sorry about that," she says once more. "I know that an apology doesn't make up for it but you know that I regret it, right?"

He reaches out and cups her face, forcing her to look at him. "I do. I was so mad at the time but I understand why you did it. We've both done things to hurt each other and nothing good is going to come from constantly rehashing it all. You don't need my forgiveness when you had every right to freak out. Like you said, neither of us are any good at the whole talking about our feelings thing."

"We're not doing too bad a job of it right now," she smiles.

She kisses him lightly before wriggling out of his embrace to grab the now cold Chinese food back up off the floor. The two stretch out opposite each other, eating in peaceful silence. The familiarity that comes from being intimate with a person and knowing someone for as long as they've known each other is obvious. One of her legs is threaded through his, and they happily swap the cartons of food back and forth between each other without a word.

The comfortable silence is only broken by broaching the topic that's been niggling at the back of her mind all night. It's the one that she's been scared of asking because she knows what's going to follow it, but she also knows that it's a conversation that's necessary.

"Did you ever wonder why things ended between Kevin and me?"

He looks up at her in surprise. It was clearly the last question he expected her to ask.

"It was easier to not think about you and Kevin actually. But I assumed you didn't see it going somewhere. The usual."

She takes a breath before saying, "He proposed to me and I said yes."

"What?"

"You know how you thought you could see yourself having a future with Quinn? That's what it was like for me with Kevin. It was safe with him so when he proposed, I accepted."

His expression is unreadable for a moment until his brow crinkles a little. "You were engaged?"

"For a little while. But he ended up taking his proposal back."

"He did? Why?" He's quiet before something seems to click into place. "Did you tell him about us?"

She could lie to him. All she has to do is tell him that Kevin broke up with her because he found out about her night with Barney and it'll be over with. It's the easy way out. Her preference in life has always been to avoid talking about the things that she doesn't want to face up to.

However, if she's learnt anything over the past year, it's that avoiding the truth doesn't get you anywhere. If she had had the courage to tell Barney how she felt then everything with Nora and Quinn might have been avoided. And even if she wants to avoid talking about it, this is a topic of conversation that she needs to have. This isn't like the first time her and Barney got together where they didn't even want to define themselves as boyfriend and girlfriend. This time they're both in it for real. And she can't let Barney jump into this thing without letting him know about the one thing that has already driven other men away. It might mean losing him but it's a risk she's willing to take. Telling him the truth may be hard, and it may ruin everything for them, but it's better than lying to him and hurting him further down the line.

"No, I didn't. I should have done but I was a coward." The air is heavy as she pauses and contemplates how to tell him the one thing that could send him running back to New York and Quinn. "Kevin and I ended because I told him something that was kind of a dealbreaker. He thought he could handle it but he realised he couldn't in the end."

"What was it?"

"Remember at the end of last year when I thought I was pregnant?" Her voice is shaking as she speaks and she can feel the butterflies growing in her stomach. The reality is that, however much Barney professes to love her, this is exactly what could make him realise that he doesn't love her as much as he thinks he does. Maybe this is a step forward for her though. Surely it means she's grown if she's ready to risk the person she loves by being honest with him. "After the doctor told me that I wasn't pregnant, she called back with some more news. She told me that I can't have kids."

She watches his face carefully as he processes what she just said. His mouth drops open slightly and the slight crinkle of his brow deepens. His face is one of confusion as he stares back at her, trying to work out how to react to her news.

It takes him a while before he finally says, "You're infertile?"

She nods, and then he does the one thing she wasn't expecting; he reaches over and hugs her. It isn't until he does that that she suddenly becomes aware of how upset she is. She hates herself for it because this conversation isn't supposed to be about her. It's meant to be her letting Barney know that any future with her is going to be drastically different to the one he could have with someone like Quinn. However, as he hugs her tightly, all her feelings from that night in December when she forced herself to come to terms with the news come rushing back. And before she knows it she's hugging him back and trying not to cry.

He's quiet as he holds her, rubbing her back and pressing kisses to the top of her head. Sheer force alone keeps her from breaking down completely but there are a few tears and sniffs as buries her face in the crook of her neck. The sadness isn't because she's still cut up over the reality of her infertility. She's come to terms with not having children, and it was never something she even wanted all that much. When Kevin had acted as if adoption would be a possibility, she had known that she never wanted to have children in any scenario. It wasn't a part of her future. And while it had hurt to have the decision to not have them taken out of her hands, it was something she had come to accept.

Instead, her sadness can be attributed to the man in front of her. She's seen Barney with kids over the years, from James' children to Marvin. He has this knack with them, maybe because he's still something of a child at heart. The fact that being with her would deprive of him of ever getting to have children of his own reawakens the pain from that night when she'd sat in Central Park talking to the children that her and Barney were never going to have. However much he may want to be with her again, her infertility changes everything. She's asking him to give up something that he clearly wants, and she's not sure that she can ask him to do that.

Pulling away, she kisses his cheek and pushes her emotions back down. She's not going to guilt Barney into staying with her.

"I understand if this changes things for you," she tells him, grabbing her glass of scotch from the bedside table and downing it almost entirely.

"Why would it change anything?"

She scoffs quietly. "Being with me means that you'll never get to have kids. It's not something I ever want to do. Finding out I can't have them merely reinforces that. And I can't ask you to give up something that you want when it's something that big."

"Robin, I wouldn't be giving anything up. What makes you think I want to have children?"

"Barney, did I imagine it or have you been telling how you've decided that you want something more in your life? You were about to marry Quinn, and the logical follow up to marriage is kids. You love children and when you thought I was pregnant, you were excited."

"Yes I was. To begin with. Have you forgotten how we _both _danced around the doctor's office when we found out you weren't pregnant? Don't assume that I'm desperate to become a dad."

"Maybe you aren't right now but you have no idea what you're going to feel in a few years' time."

"Perhaps I don't but do you know what I do know? I know that I love you and that I want to be with you. Nothing else matters."

"Why aren't you taking this more seriously?" she snaps. "If you and I stay together then you will never get to be a dad! That's not something you can decide that you don't want on some whim. I refuse to live a life where I'm always worrying that you're going to suddenly realise that I can't give you what you want!"

Her voice has raised enough that she's shouting but his voice matches hers in volume as he yells, "I don't want to be a dad!"

"You can't know that!"

"If you know yourself well enough to know that you never want to have kids then why the hell do you get to assume that I don't know myself well enough to know that I don't want them either?"

She's not sure that she has seen him this angry in a while.

"You know why? Because I don't like children and you do."

"I like Breaking Bad but I have no need to ever start dealing crystal meth! Listen to me, Robin. I love children. I adore my nieces and nephews. I love being an awesome uncle to James' kids, and to Marvin, and to Luke and Leia whenever Ted finds the girl unfortunate enough to marry him. But the whole point of being the awesome uncle is that I get to do all the fun stuff without the crappy part of being parent. Why on earth would I sign up for the crappy stuff if I can get away with just doing the fun stuff? If getting to be with you means not being a dad then that's a win in my book."

"I don't think you understand how big a deal this is. What if you wake up in five years' time and realise you want to have a baby?"

"Does that sound like me?" he asks with a snort. Grabbing hold of her hands, he leans closer to her. "I swear that I will never want to have children. All I want is to be with you. If that means never having a kid then I don't care. Being with you means far more to me than being a dad ever would. I could have stayed with Quinn and had children but I didn't want to. My future, whether that involves 2.4 children and a minivan or not, won't mean anything if you're not a part of it. Do you understand that? The only thing I care about is that I get to be with you."

Biting at her lip, Robin fights to keep her breathing calm and steady. There's never been a time when she's had anyone fight this passionately for her in the way that Barney has. He's the only person who has ever loved her exactly as she is. There's never been a need for her to change or improve for him.

"Are you absolutely sure about this? It's a lot for you to give up."

He shuffles close enough to her that their bodies are mere inches apart. Cupping her face in his hands, he leans his forehead against her and says, "I have never been more sure of anything in my life. All I want is you."

Her breath hitches in her throat and her eyes are fixed on his lips. He swears that his breath catches as well as he leans in to kiss her. Closing his eyes as he captures her lips in a kiss, he finds himself feeling overwhelmed with love for the woman in front of him. Over the years he's been with more women than he can count. But sat on this bed with this incredible woman in front of him, he can't imagine a future with anyone else.

When a small moan escapes Robin, he brings her body against his and clutches tightly at her waist. Her fingers are tangled in his hair, making sure he's pulled as closely to her as is humanely possible. The two kiss each other deeply and desperately, finally relieved of some of the largest baggage that has accompanied their relationship, and they fall back onto the bed clumsily. As the two lie there together, fighting to shed their few clothes while staying as close as they possibly can, they're both aware of the finality of what they're doing. An idea that once terrified them is no longer the fear-inducing concept it was previously. Instead, the idea of only being with each other seems like the most right thing in the world.

* * *

This time it's Barney who is the first to wake up thanks to the morning sunlight breaking through the curtains. Robin's head is resting on his chest and he almost doesn't want to wake her up. However, reunion sex has proven to be pretty damn great the first two times around and he has no doubt that a third time will prove to be just as great.

He gently shakes her awake, and she mumbles something into his chest as she turns away from the sunlight. Her inability to wake up with any sort of speed hasn't changed, and he watches as she stretches and rolls into him.

Eventually she stops grumbling and raises her head up from Barney's chest and laughs, "We really need to stop doing that when we've still got things to talk about."

"But it so much more fun than talking," he says with a smirk, lightly brushing his fingers over her hip and smiling as she shivers.

"It really is."

She tilts her head slightly to kiss his chest before shuffling up the bed so her head now rests on his shoulder. One of Barney's hands rests on her hip while the other absent-mindedly plays with Robin's hair.

"So we're really giving us a go again?"

"It's a little late to back out now," he says before pressing his lips to the top of her head. "You're stuck with me."

"It's a pain but I guess I can put up with you." She can hear his quiet laugh at that and it makes her smile. She'd forgotten how comfortable she was around him. The old cliché about being friends with someone first had always seemed a little silly to her but it's what makes her and Barney work. If they had slept together before they were friends then she would have been nothing more than another notch on his bedpost. But instead they've managed to turn their friendship into some form of functioning relationship.

However, their last attempt to do just that had failed miserably. And while their second attempt is already off to a more successful start, it's not difficult for her to envisage scenarios where they end up facing the same problems as before. After all they've been through, everything falling apart all over again isn't something she wants to deal with.

"We need to set up some ground rules." She shuffles out of him embrace and leans over to grab her pajamas off the floor. She can feel his gaze on her ass and she purposefully takes a little longer than normal to get dressed.

"I'm sorry what?" he asks when he finally manages to draw his gaze away from her body.

"Ground rules. It's not an understatement to say that our last time trying to be a couple was a disaster." They both laugh as they recall the mess they had each been by the end of their relationship. "I don't want that to happen again so we need to make sure it doesn't."

His face suggests that he's more interested in getting back to what they had been doing before but eventually he gives in and tugs on his shirt and boxers.

* * *

A round of coffee later and they find themselves camped out on the living room floor with a plate of toast between them as they hash out their past relationship and where it went wrong.

"We never talked, like ever. Every single problem was solved by us very actively not talking about it," Robin points out.

"I still steadfastly advocate your 'get naked' policy," he says with a smirk. "But we really could have talked more. We're still kind of bad it," he points out.

"We are. But last night was a big improvement. We talked about things and it wasn't the worst thing in the world."

"Okay, so we make sure that we talk. If one of us has a problem with something then we tell the other person rather than pretending nothing is wrong. However hard it is, we talk about it."

"Deal. We may have been great at the physical side of the relationship but not so much the emotional side."

"We were definitely pretty great at the physical side," he smirks. "And I'm glad to see we still are."

"Yeah, we haven't lost skill," she says before kissing him quickly. "Number two, we don't let the gang interfere this time. We're not Lily and Marshall and we never will be. If we let them tell us how a relationship is supposed to be then we're always going to feel like we're doing it wrong. We have to do this thing our way."

"Agreed. Let's leave the antiquing and touchy feely stuff to those two. If I ever offer to make you a night night tape then feel free to slap me."

"Trust me, I will."

He falls quiet and seems to be weighing up what he's about to say next. However, he eventually swallows and says, "What about where we see this going? Neither of us has the same attitude towards relationships that we did three years ago."

The subtext of his question is obvious. When they were last together, neither of them had broached the step of moving in with someone, let alone being engaged. Now Robin is someone who gave up her dream job for a guy and who was engaged for a short while. Meanwhile Barney has overcome his fear of commitment, having found himself only a day away from becoming a married man. Commitment is definitely not their greatest fear anymore.

"I'm all in," she says with a smile. "I don't think we should rush anything though. We need to readjust to being together and who we are now in comparison to three years ago. But you're it for me."

There was a time that that sentence would have sent Barney running in the opposite direction as fast as he possibly could. However, all he does is smile at her, bump his shoulder against hers, and wrap an arm around her waist.

"Ditto, Scherbatsky."

"I'm glad to hear it." The smile on her face is probably as goofy as the one on his but she doesn't care. "The next thing should be obvious. No Lusty Leopard."

He opens his mouth to protest but two things seem to register at once. The first is that him almost marrying a stripper means that they're not Robin's favourite people in the world right now. And secondly, Quinn's newly found single status probably means that she's going to be back working there in the next week or two. It doesn't take a genius to work out that watching his ex-fiancée strip would be a surefire way to destroy his relationship with Robin almost immediately.

"Fair enough," he says after a small pause. "My thing is that I need you to be more open. I know it's not in your nature but there are times that it can be hard to be with you when I have no idea how you feel."

"Isn't that covered by the talking rule?"

"That's for problems and issues," he points out. "This is me needing to know how you feel. I know that makes me sound like Ted but I don't care. The whole reason I moved on with Quinn is that I had no idea how you felt about me. Ted straight up asked me if it was okay for you to get back together with him when you'd broken up with Kevin. I told him it was fine because, as far as I knew, you had no feelings for me. I don't want it to be like that."

"Underneath it all, you're really needy, aren't you?" She grins at him and swats his shoulder lightly. "I know where you're coming from though. I'm just not that good at that stuff but I will try and improve." She stands up slightly and swings around so she's now straddling Barney. Locking her arms around his neck, she presses her forehead against his and says, "I love you."

"Sorry, what was that?" he asks, gripping her waist and making sure his fingers rest on bare skin rather than the material of her pajama bottoms.

"I love you."

"Sorry, one more time. I didn't quite catch that," he laughs.

"I." She kisses him. "Love." She kisses him again. "You." This time he preempts her kiss, and the idea of talking disappears out of both their heads for a minute or two.

"Is there anything else we need to talk about? Or can we get back to what we we're best at?"

"Talking about our problems more, saying I love you, not letting Lily and Marshall interfere, no strippers, not being scared of commitment. I think we've covered it all." He leans up to kiss her again but they're interrupted by the sound of a key in the lock.

Robin swings off him just in time to see Rebecca walk through the door. Her roommate waves at her before stopping suddenly as she notices the half-dressed man on the floor next to her.

"Um, hi," she says as she shrugs off her coat. "Robin, who's this?"

"Rebecca, this is Barney." The way she says his name is heavy with implications, signaling to Barney that Rebecca knows exactly who he is. And that's only emphasised by the look of recognition that passes across her face.

"You're Barney! Hi!" She reaches out a hand for him to shake, and it's obvious that she's fighting some form of 'I told you so' smirk. "I'm guessing the wedding didn't go great then?"

"You could say that. I'm going to go get dressed. Obviously you two need to talk."

The living room is quiet when he leaves until Rebecca finally lets out a cry of annoyance when it becomes clear that Robin's beaming grin isn't going to segue into her explaining how Barney is in their flat.

"What the hell is going on? I thought he was getting married!"

"He was. But then he found this letter that I wrote telling him how I felt. He broke up with Quinn and jumped on the first flight over here."

"What letter?"

"It was this thing that I wrote when I was drunk. I never meant for him to see it but he did."

"Oh my god. Are you guys back together?"

"We talked about everything that we've always avoided talking about, and we decided to give us another chance."

"Sweetie, I'm so happy for you!" Rebecca cries before giving her a hug. "He flew all the way over here to get you back? That's so romantic! It's like something out of a romantic comedy. You have to tell me everything." Her eyes flicker down to take in Robin's rumpled clothes and messy hair. "I'm assuming you did more than just talk." Robin bites her lip and grins up at her. "Oh god, you've got that disgusting happy in love glow now. Stop making me feel bad about my single status."

"I will try and not be smug and happy and in love. But I can't promise anything. And I will fill you in on everything. I want to spend today with Barney though. He's got to fly back to New York on Tuesday."

"Ugh, you guys are already depressing me," Rebecca complains, falling back onto the sofa with a dramatic toss of her arm.

She throws a cushion at Robin's retreating back but she does nothing but laugh.

* * *

Robin walks back into her bedroom to find Barney sat on her bed, suited up and on his Blackberry. It's such a familiar sight but the fact that he's here in her room causes another stupid smile to form on her face. Robin may have always prided herself on never needing anyone, but it feels like her life has finally fallen into place once and for all now Barney is back to being more than just her friend. She has a great group of friends, her dream job, and is back together with the only guy she's ever seen a real future with.

"What are you doing?" she asks as she sits down next to him, looping an arm through his and leaning against him.

"I was texting Ted. Apparently me disappearing has caused everyone to worry." He stops talking when he notices the look on Robin's face. "What's wrong?"

"Can we maybe not fill everyone in right away? Last night was great because it was you and me. The moment the gang find out about us being back together we're going to have to deal with all their questions and attempts to interfere. Our phones aren't going to stop ringing. I've already had about five texts from Lily because she heard you at the door last night. It'd be nice to have one day before that all starts."

"Okay. I'm not exactly going to turn down us having alone time. How about I text Ted and tell him that I'm alright and I'll fill him in on everything when I'm back in New York?"

"Sounds good. Maybe then we could and go and get brunch. It'd be nice to put all my new found London knowledge to use."

"Isn't brunch a bit of a cliché? It sounds like something Marshall and Lily would do. I thought we were going to try and avoid being like them."

"I think we're allowed one or two couple clichés since you already committed the biggest one of them all," she tells him as she swaps her pajamas for a sundress to take advantage of England's late summer.

"What cliché have I committed?" he asks incredulously, his gaze firmly fixed on his half-naked girlfriend.

"Um, you flew halfway around the world to declare your love for me. That's straight out of romcom 101. The dramatic declaration of love is the staple of almost every Richard Curtis film. You Colin Firth-ed me."

"Come on, you have to admit that it's a pretty good cliché."

"In this circumstance, it is." She kisses him lightly, letting her thumb brush against his jaw, and smiles at him. "So brunch?"

"Brunch."

Robin holds onto his arm for a moment before pulling away and he watches her walk over to her dresser. Barney has spent his life mocking monogamy and everything that comes with it. For a long time he was convinced it was something he didn't want. However, as he watches Robin get ready to go out with him for a meal that's restricted almost entirely to couples, it's suddenly the only thing that makes sense. He had thought he was happy with Quinn but now he can see that his feelings for her were nothing compared to way he feels about the woman in front of him. The idea of a future with Robin feels right in a way that nothing else has.

When he had talked to his dad about how you go about settling down, Jerry had told him that you need to find the right girl. And just like when Nora's dad had talked about soulmates, the only person he had pictured was Robin. Commitment doesn't seem scary when it's with her. He's not an idiot; he can see what his future would have been like with Quinn. He would have tried to make their marriage work but all it would have resulted in was years wasted on someone he didn't truly love and a costly divorce. With Robin, he sees a future where he's happy, and that's all he really wants.

It's not going to be easy for the two of them; both of them know that. It wouldn't be them if it was. However, what matters is that they both want to be together. The sort of bond that they have is one that isn't broken by the occasional fight, however big it may be. That's the reason they've found themselves being drawn to each other time and time again.

They're going to face their fair share of problems, and there are going to be times that they each have their doubts. Sometimes a pretty young girl is going to smile Barney's way and he'll feel a twinge of regret at the loss of his bachelorhood. But when he remembers that he's the guy who gets to go home with Robin Scherbatsky every night, every other woman will simply pale in comparison. And there will be times where Robin is on assignment in some foreign country and she will remember how she never envisioned her travels involving a wedding ring on her finger. But nights spent alone in a strange hotel room with Barney's voice on the other end of the phone to help her sleep will remind her that sometimes your life can turn out better than expected even if it's not what you originally pictured.

So no, it isn't going to be easy. They will argue over the fact that Robin is going to spend at least three months a year on foreign assignment, even after she works to convince her boss to let her move back to New York once she's finished in London. Robin will spend three nights sleeping on Lily and Marshall's couch and ignoring Barney's calls when she learns that his co-workers dragged him to the Lusty Leopard one night, even when he swears that Quinn wasn't there. And Ted will be close to a nervous breakdown when both the bride and groom suffer simultaneous freak outs on their wedding day and attempt to run.

Yes, there will be times when both of them feel that the easiest thing to do would be to break up. However, those bad times will be balanced out by the good that comes from them finally having the guts to tell the person they love how they feel. The night that Robin finally realises that she doesn't need her dad's approval will be the night she watches her fiancée berate her father for not realising how awesome his daughter is. And when Barney finds himself on the brink of being fired once again, his anxiety will be eased by getting home and finding his wife waiting for him. They will have years of Sundays wasted in beds and impromptu trips around the world that will make all those bad times seem like nothing at all.

But for now all those years and moments stand in front of them. For this moment, as they leave the flat and stroll hand in hand through the London streets, all that matters is that they are Barney and Robin, the two members of their group who have always been the most wary of love and commitment. After all these years and all the times where what they are now came precariously close to instead being what they could have been, they've finally figured it out. And though they both would be reluctant to admit it, the reality is that being in love isn't that scary after all. All you need is chemistry, timing, and a little bit of hope.


End file.
